Deviant Donald

When Harry Truman, faced with a steel strike in the midst of the Korean War, tried to seize the steel mills, the Supreme Court said “no,” that he lacked the statutory or executive authority to do so. Truman fumed at the decision, but obeyed it. When a unanimous Supreme Court told President Richard Nixon in 1974 to turn over tapes and other materials related to the Watergate cover-up, Nixon had to know that following that subpoena would end his presidency. But he did so, and 16 days later, he was on his way to exile in California.

Nothing in Trump’s conduct suggests he would follow those examples. Indeed, he has made it part of his brand to sweep aside the practices that were more or less universally accepted by presidents past—whether by failing to release past tax returns, or concealing records of White House visitors, or entangling himself and his family in decisions that could affect their personal finances, or declaring a bogus national emergency to find money Congress specifically denied him. Trump has, to use the late Daniel Moynihan’s famous phrase, “defined deviancy down,” and what is more, he has done it with the more or less full backing of his party’s congressional and institutional wing, either out of their admiration for his boldness or their fear of his capacity to end their political lives.

Trump’s party has spent the better part of two years acting as an Amen corner, amplifying the president’s own insistence that any assertion of illegal or impeachable conduct on his part is by definition the product of a corrupt “Deep State,” out to stage a coup against the chief executive. So if Mueller’s report triggers a demand from courts or the Congress for evidence to follow up his conclusions, would a presidential refusal be turned into a partisan battle, rather than an institutional demand that the executive accede to a co-equal branch of government?

[...]

I don’t think Steve Bannon meant to be taken seriously when he said, “Never in my life did I think I’d like to see a dictator, but if there’s going to be one, I want it to be Trump,” but the serious assertions among his followers that “God put Trump in the White House” suggest his base will be with him until Judgment Day.

  Politico

Which can't come too soon.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.