Before the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, it was possible, however optimistically, to dismiss Donald Trump’s authoritarianism as mere rhetoric and affect. It is not possible any longer. Sessions’s departure, and his replacement with Matt Whitaker, is Trump’s plan to corrupt the Department of Justice. It is the most dire threat to the republic since Trump’s election itself.
If you study literature of democratic backsliding, the frightening conclusion is that nobody has devised a system of laws comprehensive enough to guarantee the survival of a democratic government. Because there is always wiggle room in the execution and enforcement of the law, democracies rely on informal norms. One of those norms is the independence of federal law enforcement, without which, the ruling party could use the law as a weapon against its enemies while shielding itself.