Much of what I wrote during the first year of Trump 2.0 was reactive commentary on each day's story or outrage. One thing that thrilled the ideologues gathered around Donald Trump at the start of his second term (and alarmed many of the rest of us) was the sense that the administration's actions were guided by the nihilistic (morally and legally vacuous) principle that the president 'can just do stuff.' Every right-wing fantasy of unchecked executive power was being enacted: Donald Trump attempted to hire and fire civil servants at will, even those deemed 'independent' by Congress; he appointed and empowered (without Senate oversight or confirmation) Elon Musk to take over and gut congressionally authorized programs (with the instantaneous disbanding of USAID being the highest profile example); he shipped immigrants to foreign countries where some were thrown in maximum security prisons with no judicial recourse; he repeatedly blew up civilian boats in international waters; he...
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