ACTUALLY, TRUMP IS AN INSTITUTIONALIST -- AND HE'S THE INSTITUTION

In his latest column, David Brooks argues that true Trumpists have no respect of institutions.

What does heroism look like according the MAGA morality? It looks like the sort of people whom Trump has picked to be in his cabinet. The virtuous man in this morality is self-assertive, combative, transgressive and vengeful. He’s not afraid to break the rules and come to his own conclusions. He has contempt for institutions and is happy to be a battering force to bring them down. He is unbothered by elite scorn but, in fact, revels in it and goes out of his way to generate it.

In this mind-set, if the establishment regards you as a sleazeball, you must be doing something right. If the legal system indicts you, you must be a virtuous man.

In this morality, the fact that a presidential nominee is accused of sexual assault is a feature, not a bug. It’s a sign that this nominee is a manly man. Manly men go after what they want. They assert themselves and smash propriety — including grabbing women “by the pussy” if they feel like it.

In this worldview, a nominee enshrouded in scandal is more trustworthy than a person who has lived an honest life.

But Trumpers don't admire everyone who defies institutional rules, or who is "self-assertive, combative, transgressive and vengeful." They don't admire immigrants who try to improve their lives by defying our immigration laws. They might romanticize the Mafia, but they don't admire contemporary criminals or drug dealers (except, perhaps, their own). Blake Masters, the failed pro-Trump Arizona GOP Senate candidate who, like J.D. Vance, is a far-right Peter Thiel protégé, actually did see the world that way when he was a nineteen-year-old posting at LiveJournal:

In a series of short, polemical blog posts, Masters once suggested that “illegal immigration is an ethical contradiction in terms,” argued that “‘unrestricted’ immigration is the only choice,” and commended U.S. service members who had participated in a drug trafficking ring along the southwestern border as “heroes,” among other things.

But Masters doesn't believe any of that now, and neither does MAGA. Nor does MAGA admire Hunter Biden, who clearly used to play by his own rules regarding sex, drugs, and business.

That's because Donald Trump and his followers actually do believe in institutions -- the Trump Organization, pro-Trump companies like X.com and SpaceX, and the Republican Party and conservative movement, now that they're under total Trumpist control. Trumpists are transgressors, but the transgressors must be loyal to those institutions.

Obviously, being loyal to Trumpian institutions means transforming or attempting to destroy institutions that are outside the Trump orbit, because they're not made up of loyal lackeys. That's why Trump affiliated himself with Project 2025, the leaders of which aren't transgressive in their personal lives. Trump thinks Project 2025 will empty out the bureaucracy and restock it exclusively with Trumpists.

That's also why Trump likes Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee for director of national intelligence, who obviously isn't a hard-partying, sexually predatory man. David Lurie of Public Notice writes:

Trump has long held a grudge against the work of competent intelligence and counterintelligence professionals, including in the FBI, CIA, and the office of the DNI. That is unsurprising, given that their work has inevitably raised questions about Trump’s own curious associations and affinities with many of the nation’s sworn enemies, as reflected in the events that gave rise to the Mueller investigation and Trump’s first impeachment.

... On that background, his elevation of someone like Gabbard to the DNI position makes perfect sense.

I believe Gabbard is a Russian agent. I suspect Trump is merely a Russian dupe. Trump collaborates with Vladimir Putin and can easily be persuaded to do Putin's bidding, but I don't believe he has the larger perspective of Gabbard, who wants to make the United States part of a Moscow-based Axis of Evil. Trump just wants to be pals with a dictator and reap whatever rewards come from that.

Robert Kennedy Jr. is a bit more of a puzzle. A few days ago, The Bulwark's Jonathan Last tried to understand why Trump wants to turn Department of Human Services over to him. Is this why?

Cabinet secretaries exist to enact the vision and priorities of the president.

Ergo, Kennedy must have been given this appointment because he shares the president-elect’s views on vaccines, research, etc. in toto.

Ergo, if Kennedy’s nomination is defeated and someone else takes his place, then he or she would pursue the exact same policy revisions on vaccines, research, et al.

Or is this correct?

The other reading is that Kennedy has been nominated as an act of pure transactionalism:

* Trump needed Kennedy’s support, so he promised him HHS.

* Trump does not give a fig about anything HHS does.

* If Kennedy were to ban all vaccines, Trump would be fine with that.

* If Kennedy’s nomination is blocked and Trump then appoints a normal person like, say, Mike Leavitt, then Leavitt would not pursue any of Kennedy’s policies.

* And Trump would be fine with that, too.

* Because Trump has fully severed policy from ideology and reduced it to nothing but transactionalism.

I think it's mostly the latter, but the appointment wasn't just a payoff to Kennedy personally -- after all, Trump has appointed other skeptics and denialists to the public health bureaucracy.

I think Trump likes the idea that Kennedy will terrorize that bureaucracy, on the assumption that everyone remaining after Kennedy's purge will be loyal to Trump. (I don't think Trump quite realizes that they'll be loyal to a particular crackpot health viewpoint, not to Trump.)

I also think Trump is trying to keep his own voter base loyal -- remember, they've booed him when he said nice things about COVID vaccines. Trump's base is full of skeptics and denialists. Trump's base hates Anthony Fauci as much as Kennedy does and believes Fauci should be in prison, or executed for treason.

Trump might have some anger at the public health bureaucracy. He was frustrated in the fall of 2020 when it became clear that no COVID vaccine would be approved until after the election. And he was a low-level vaccine skeptic years ago, as he made clear in a 2015 primary debate:

"You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump — I mean, it looks just like it's meant for a horse, not for a child," Trump said, "and we've had so many instances, people that work for me. Just the other day, 2 years old, 2 1/2-years old, a child, a beautiful child went to have the vaccine, and came back, and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic."

But mostly I think Trump hopes that Kennedy will help ensure that Trump's voters and government bureaucrats will be loyal to the one institution Trump cares about -- himself.