THE FAT ELVIS PRESIDENCY?

The Trump presidency will continue to be a militarized and fiscal assault on the right's enemies, but the president himself seems to be losing a bit of focus on that aspect of his rule. Instead, like Elvis in his later years, he's wallowing in self-indulgence.

Trump wants. He wants his cravings fulfilled. He wants a fancy ballroom in place in the old East Wing -- Chris Geidner of Law Dork reports that the demolition of the wing is nearly complete.

The New York Times reports that Trump wants a nine-figure sum from taxpayers.

President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.

The situation has no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims. It is also the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.

The focus of the Times story is on the conflict of interest, which is understandable, but the important point here isn't that Trump is demanding cash from the Justice Department, it's that he's demanding cash from us -- in a year when he and his family have already become at least $3.4 billion richer as a consequence of his election and efforts to exploit the office. And no, I don't take seriously the claim that if he gets the $230 million, he'll give it to charity.

Trump also continues to be obsessed with the notion that he really won the 2020 election:

... Mr. Trump and his allies, despite a clear victory last year, remain consumed with the belief that the 2020 election was stolen — and ... the president is using the powers of the government to upend an electoral system that he insists helped Joseph R. Biden Jr. take the White House.

In the past few months, Mr. Trump has elevated multiple proponents of his fraud claims into high-level administration jobs. Now, as government insiders, these activists could wield their newfound power to discredit future results or rekindle old claims to argue for a federal intrusion into locally administered voting systems.

There's a fair amount of overlap between what Trump wants and what other Republicans who seek to turn America into a one-party pseudo-democracy want -- obviously, if no opposition party can ever defeat Republicans, Russell Vought and Stephen Miller will be happy, as will the J.D. Vance/Peter Thiel crowd -- but even in this area, Trump seems to be focused primarily on what exalts him, not what might create a thousand-year Republican Reich.

Apart from the tariffs, there isn't much Trump wants that anti-democracy Republicans disapprove of -- but I wonder if they think he's occasionally taking his eyes off the prize they want, or at least providing unpopular distractions from what they want. Even CNN's principal Trump toady, Scott Jennings, thinks the pursuit of the $230 million is a bad look for Trump:

“My personal advice, if he asked me, would be, you having to table this until you leave office. The process started before you came to office, you then won an election and, you look, I think he maybe was damaged and he’s entitled to the process. If it were me and I were advising him, I would just say you could table it and put it off until you leave office.”

And the demolition of the East Wing just looks terrible.

But I suspect that Trump will focus more and more on vengeance and self-indulgence in the future. The schemes of Vought and Miller make him feel powerful, so he's happy to let them proceed, but he cares about himself in ways they don't. We may see his priorities diverge from those of his allies even more in the future.