General Discussion

But I will say that I have heard people saying for quite some time now that Trump can't do this, that, or the other, and what he seems to be engaged in right now is an exercise to prove that, yes, he can do whatever the hell he likes. He has been stymied by courts from time to time, but that has not dissuaded him, and his efforts appear to be increasing.

He couldn't fire all those government employees. He couldn't dismantle USAID, or PBS, or rename the Kennedy Center. He couldn't order the National Guard into California. He couldn't order the Marines into Los Angeles. He couldn't sent immigrants to CECOT against the orders of a court. He couldn't order the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies. He couldn't use the military to remove the head of state of a sovereign nation and bring him to New York to face trial. He certainly couldn't do it without notifying Congress and getting their approval first.

That's a tiny sample of the things that Trump clearly couldn't do, but he's done all of them. The law means nothing to him, Republicans in Congress are fully compliant, the Justice Department are his personal attorneys, and he has been given billions of dollars to build an internal police force (ICE) which is completely loyal to him, and has demonstrated that they will happily carry out illegal orders. Meanwhile, the US military has also demonstrated that they will carry out illegal orders on his behalf. He has also previously demonstrated that he will commit illegal actions, including the use of violence, in order to overturn election results.

By our system of laws, Trump is not omnipotent -- but he thinks he's omnipotent, and he's acting as if he is omnipotent. He's also a mentally ill megalomaniacal narcissist, potentially with an onset of dementia, which makes his paranoia even more dangerous.

So again -- I genuinely do not say this in order to fearmonger, merely to be clear-eyed about what's going on. I'm just describing events as I currently see them.