Trump is frantic to take down foes because he fears base is about to turn on him: analyst

President Donald Trump is aware that public opinion on him is getting worse and worse by the day — and he's desperate to consolidate authoritarian control over government — and do things like lock up his political adversaries — before polls get to the point that his underlings stop listening to him, argued former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum for The Atlantic.

"President Donald Trump is worried that Attorney General Pam Bondi is moving too slowly to prosecute his political adversaries on fake charges," wrote Frum. "Trump has good reason to be concerned. He is carrying out his project to consolidate authoritarian power against the trend of declining public support for his administration and himself. He is like a man trying to race upward on a downward-moving escalator. If he loses the race, he will be pulled ever deeper below — and the escalator keeps moving faster against him."

The most visible example of his desperation comes as he forced out his own hand-picked federal prosecutor in Virginia who was unable to amass the evidence to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud.

James, who has led a number of investigations of Trump, was accused of falsely claiming multiple homes as primary residences by Trump's attack dog at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, but James has denied wrongdoing.

The problem Trump faces, wrote Frum, is that as Trump's numbers continue to sink, people around him and in his administration are less likely to make the calculation that breaking the law for him is worth it.

"Autocracies are headed by one man but require the cooperation of many others. Some collaborators may sincerely share the autocrat’s goals, but opportunists provide a crucial margin of support. In the United States, such people now have to make a difficult calculation: Do the present benefits of submitting to Trump’s will outweigh the future hazards?" wrote Frum.

So, as Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi "makes her daily decisions about whether to abuse her powers to please Trump, she has to begin with one big political assessment: Will Trump ultimately retain the power to reward and punish her?"

After all, he noted, Nixon's attorney general John Mitchell served 19 months in prison for his role in the Watergate affair — and "if Trump’s hold on power loosens, Bondi could share Mitchell’s fate." Indeed, Frum noted, she could have much more criminal exposure than Trump if a massive scandal blows up.

Ultimately, as Trump eyes the 2026 midterms, he now understands that "the survival of American rights and liberties may now turn less on the question of whether Pam Bondi is a person of integrity — which we already know the dismal answer to — than whether she is willing to risk her career and maybe even her personal freedom for a president on his way to repudiation unless he can fully pervert the U.S. legal system and the 2026 elections," Frum concluded.