[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by GeneticKiss

Removing Trump may not mortally wound his ideology, but it would give it a good scar it'd do well to not forget how it got it.

Back in February (shit, that feels like a decade ago), there was a bit about this point on Fareed Zakaria's newsletter (not written by FZ; the links to the originals articles by Stephen Walt and Joshua Zeitz are included):

Things May Not Go Back to ‘Normal’ After Trump

At Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt recently ticked off an exhaustive list of autocratic-style transgressions he sees President Trump as having perpetrated (or having nearly done so): Intimidating the media, politicizing the military, rewarding favored constituencies, and demonizing the opposition are all included.

Troubling as Walt’s assessment may be, Joshua Zeitz argues in Politico Magazine that whatever one thinks of Trump’s departures, the presidency may not go back to “normal” so easily after him, as our conception of “normal” is relatively recent. “[i]t’s pretty reasonable to expect that presidents not misdirect law enforcement and civilian officials to do their political bidding, that presidents be transparent with the media, and that courts remain free of political influence,” he writes. “The point, rather, is that these norms were not timeless features of our system.”

J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI surveilled Martin Luther King, Jr. during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, Nixon took things to new levels by trying to turn federal agencies on opponents, and open press access is a modern phenomenon, Zeitz writes; most of the norms we now take for granted only evolved after Watergate. “Much like an unwritten constitution, political culture evolves contingently, and presidents—especially in recent decades—enjoy sweeping ability to leave a lasting imprint on that culture,” he writes. “They also have broad authority to smash old ways of doing things.”