Ultimately, Trump’s actions have shown just how much American democracy depends not on enforceable law, but on norms and standards of behaviour. These, in turn, depend on individuals acting in good faith, together and apart. The Department of Justice, for example, long thought of as an independent enforcer of the law, was all too easily overtaken by sycophants who saw Trump as a vehicle for their own hyper-partisan agenda.
Not only is Trump uniquely unencumbered by respect for American democracy, he himself is the product of those broken institutions, and of a broken political culture….
