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“I’m the only one that matters”: Trump’s chilling imperial power-grab
Trump has never understood, or respected, the limits on presidential power. Now he’s trying to make them disappear
HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
11.06.2017•7:05 PM





President Donald Trump is overseas right now, doing personal appearances at his properties and making a fool of himself. So far, he's asked Japanese car makers to start making cars in the United States, apparently ignorant of the fact that three out of four Japanese-branded cars and trucks are already manufactured in America. And he hawked U.S. military equipment as if he were selling Trump steaks on YouTube.

That wasn't the worst of it. He also told American and Japanese troops that no nation should "underestimate American resolve." Then he quipped, "Every once in a while, in the past, they underestimated us. It was not pleasant for them, was it?"

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He's gotten himself into some trouble because of this. He asked FBI director James Comey to give his friend Michael Flynn a pass and then fired Comey when he refused to play ball, an impulsive act that ended up with the appointment of Mueller. Trump then tried to get the Justice Department to go easy on former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and when that didn't happen he just pulled out his pardon pen and set Arpaio free, sending a strong message to all his cronies that he looked out for those who stood by him. But the one thing that both thrills his supporters and gives him sustenance is continually calling for Hillary Clinton to be prosecuted.

Just before the president set out for his Asia trip, he went on a Twitter spree and gave a series of interviews that made it clear he's serious about this. He tweeted frantically about the bogus story being pushed by Fox News about Clinton supposedly "selling out" the country to the Russians in that 2010 uranium deal. Trump made his most revealing comments of all on a radio show last Thursday:

I look at what's happening with the Justice Department. Well, why aren't they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her -- the dossier? I'm very unhappy with it, that the Justice Department isn't going. I am not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated by it.

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Trump's authoritarian tendencies are showing up in other ways as well. Axios reports that when he met with Native American tribal leaders and they complained about land use regulations that prevented them from extracting energy resources, he responded, "But now it's me, the government's different now. Obama's gone; and we're doing things differently here. So what I'm saying is, just do it." Trump may actually believe he has the unilateral power to lift any regulation he wants to, and he unquestionably wishes that were true.

He recently told reporters, "My attitude is the only one that matters," when it comes to dealing with North Korea, adding that he is "stronger and tougher" than his advisers. Similarly, when Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Trump last week whether he planned to fill appointments at the State Department, he replied, "Let me tell you, the one that matters is me. I'm the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that's what the policy is going to be."

We don't know how much this president really understands about the limits of his authority. And we don't know how far the members of his own party and law enforcement officials who support him are willing to go. But we know what he would "love" to do because he's told us. He would love to use the police power of the federal government for his own purposes. By firing Comey and pardoning Arpaio, he's already pushed the boundaries. This used to be called abuse of power. Under Trump it's business as usual.

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