AP Photo FOURTH ESTATE Why I’m Not Afraid of Baby Donald President Trump isn’t a tyrant in the making. He’s just a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.

Now ensconced in the White House after 16 months on the hustings, President Donald Trump has taken his rollicking campaign into places that were designed to remain apolitical.

On Jan. 21, he stood before the Central Intelligence Agency’s Memorial Wall to give a stump speech, not unlike the many delivered in 2015 and 2016. The difference here was that Trump was courting the CIA, flattering them with the depth of his new adoration. “I want to say that there is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligence community and the CIA than Donald Trump. There’s nobody,” Trump said. He also used the occasion to inflate the size of the audience at his inaugural address and presumptuously assumed that “almost everybody in this room voted” for him. This posturing took a lot of gall, especially considering how he trash-talked the CIA as recently as December.


On Monday, Trump visited U.S. Central Command in Tampa to romance the military. Attacking the press—accusing it of underreporting terrorist attacks, of all things!—he pandered to the men and women in uniform. “We stand behind you. We support your mission. We love our country. We are loyal to our people. We respect our flag. We celebrate our traditions. We honor our heroes. You are our heroes,” he said. Does anybody remember that he ripped the military all campaign long while his campaign simultaneously importuned retired generals for their endorsements?

Add Trump’s disparaging remarks about the judiciary, calling U.S. District Judge James L. Robart a “so-called judge” in a tweet, and the poisonous bouquet he’s vending reaches full blossom. It’s not that Trump is the first politician who has attempted to politicize the CIA, the military or the courts. President Richard Nixon approved an order to have the CIA block an FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in on the bogus pretext of a threat to national security, and the Bush administration pressured the agency to produce intelligence that would serve his Iraq war aims. Civilian control of a neutral military has been a national goal since the republic’s founding, even if a political virus has taken root in the armed forces since the end of World War II. And presidents before Trump rumbled with the judiciary. According to apocryphal accounts, President Andrew Jackson said of one Supreme Court ruling, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

But Trump’s provocations, so early in his administration, mark him as a president who respects no authority outside of his own and resents any independent pursuit of truth that might clash with his. To paraphrase the poet Morrissey, Trump’s authoritarian ways would make Caligula blush.

Nobody advocates a totally independent CIA and a freewheeling military, unfettered by presidential control and congressional review. The president is free to appoint and dismiss the top spook and the military brass. But the CIA and the military weren’t established to serve narrow political ends or respond to the president’s every call like a trained seal. Both the CIA and the military exist to protect the nation and defend the Constitution, not help the president beat a path to a desired political outcome. That’s what electioneering and lobbying Congress are for. Without sounding like a high school civics instructor, the framers of the Constitution divided control of these institutions between the executive and legislative branches to prevent European-style power grabs by aspiring despots.

Likewise, we insulate the courts from direct political power in hopes that they will reach wise and impartial decisions. Only a dunce believes that the courts and the judges are free of politics. Most federal judges carry political water to get their jobs from the president and tend to serve their party’s ideology during their time on the bench. But the law instructs judges to serve the Constitution, not the president. Any attempt by Trump to use the judiciary—or the CIA or the military—as a political prop deserves our immediate rebuke. If Judge Robart’s ruling displeases Trump, he can instruct members of his party to begin impeachment proceedings. Otherwise, as they say at the ballpark to the guy who’s making a billboard of himself, sit down!

Let’s not interpret the president’s jawboning as a prelude to a coup. Let’s also not construe Trump’s palaver—such as pre-blaming future terrorist attacks on judges like Robart—as political maneuvering. Much of the denigration and praise that comes out of his mouth has little to do with politics and almost everything to do with Donald J. Trump and his toddler-sized ego. He’s furious with Judge Robart because Robart defied him and because he has no retaliatory power. Trump can’t “win” unless Robart plays along, and there’s no possibility he will. Lifetime appointments to the bench are like that.

Outward-facing institutions like the CIA, the military, and the judiciary have the power to reject Trump’s blundering blandishments and hissy threats. I’m confident they will.

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Thanks to Marion Maneker for the morning mind-meld. Launch a coup with an email to [email protected]. My email alerts have read the complete works of Max Stirner, cough up fur balls. My Twitter feed has reached Season 2, Episode 2 of The Man in the High Castle. My RSS feed subsists on a diet of blood.