No one ever confused this president for a #MeToo activist. But on a Monday morning when the departure of one of the most powerful figures in media was confirmed amid an onslaught of sexual misconduct allegations, we also got a reminder of just how much Donald Trump is (successfully) swimming against the currents of our culture. A new book from Bob Woodward providing a window into Trump's White House has the president in conniptions, not least because it's full of a seemingly endless parade of details like this:

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Trump’s #MeToo advice, per Woodward book:

“You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women. If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead.” pic.twitter.com/4wU0Po2Y1M — Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) September 9, 2018

Like nearly every other Woodwardian revelation, this is more or less a confirmation that things are as they appear from the outside. (That does not make them any less concerning.) It is quite clearly Trump's strategy—not just when accused of misconduct, but in all things—to Deny Til You Die. Yet it's still jarring to hear it expressed as a true strategy, as part of a larger worldview about the interconnected dynamics of fear and power and truth. It's a philosophy—one that, at least as it applies to the life of Donald Trump, appears to have been proven functionally correct.

Trump has been accused of misconduct by at least 19 women, but it doesn't seem to matter. He has so far avoided, fairly easily, the consequences that pretty much every other powerful man accused in the #MeToo wave has eventually faced. Even men like Les Moonves and Al Franken, who never truly admitted to wrongdoing, still were forced out of their jobs.

Les Moonves in July Drew Angerer Getty Images

Perhaps they didn't deny hard enough, wholly and completely, as Trump has. Or maybe it's that Trump identified early on that he was building a base of support, which would be impenetrable if the supporters viewed him as the avatar in an existential struggle to keep White America at the center of civic and cultural life in this country. When he said he could "shoot someone on Fifth Avenue," he really meant he can do or say whatever he wants. Millions of people now support him unconditionally, because their support is now borne up in their very identities. To abandon Trump—to give up being a Trump Supporter—would be to abandon their vision of themselves.

Moonves has no such constituency. Neither does Franken. Trump has seized on the rising extremism of Republican base politics and the conservative infotainment machine that supports it to completely avoid accountability for his actions. As long as he keeps his 30-or-so percent, and the Republican majorities in Congress continue to abet him out of fear and greed, he is in a certain sense untouchable.

After all, Trump was also caught on tape admitting to sexual assault. It's enough to make you wonder whether he could admit to the charges leveled by all 19 of those women and remain the leader of the Republican Party.

Democracy does not function if elected leaders are not accountable to their citizens. This is the kind of thing we're talking about when we say the constitutional crisis is already here.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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