What frightens elites of all ideological stripes about Donald Trump, more than any particular policy position he’s adopted or flirted with, is his brazen contempt for checks on political power.

Trump has promised to “open up libel laws” so that egomaniacal billionaires like himself and his ally Peter Thiel will have an easier time running unfriendly media outlets out of business. (His ally and former campaign aide Roger Stone has been still more explicit, saying, “When Donald Trump is president he should turn off [CNN’s] FCC license.”) He has encouraged his supporters to assault his protesters. And when he talks about his hypothetical administration, Trump, like a prototypical fascist, espouses a kind of executive supremacy, untroubled in any obvious way by the balance of separated powers set forth in the constitution. In the most dramatic example, after House Speaker Paul Ryan scolded Trump for contentedly accepting the support of white supremacists, Trump brushed him off with a vague threat. “I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him,” Trump said. “And if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price, OK? OK.”

It’s these transgressions—many of them abstract affronts to political norms—more than his offensive, oft-ridiculed policy agenda that places Trump beyond the pale for his conservative and liberal critics. For instance, after initially arguing that Trump’s nomination would be healthier for the country than the nomination of a more traditional Republican, liberal writer Jonathan Chait changed his mind. Citing Trump’s incitement and demagoguery, the New York magazine columnist concluded that the very nature of Trump’s candidacy (to say nothing of his potential presidency) poses an unprecedented threat to American democracy.

But can Trump really succeed in trampling the constitutional constraints (media scrutiny, legislative opposition, judicial review) that threaten his objectives? It’s common to hear political analysts say that the rules of politics don’t apply to Trump. If he could not only win the primary against the wishes of the Republican Party leadership, but win the presidency despite historically low favorability ratings, wouldn’t it follow that once he’s in office, he could transcend the limits of power that circumscribe presidents and other powerful people?

This analysis is largely projected—a reflection of the widely shared belief that the Republican Party would thwart Trump’s nomination, and that their failure to do so must be a symptom of his invincibility, when it was really just a symptom of the GOP’s brokenness.

