When this sleeping giant awakens, Trump will be toast

People keep asking: How can Trump do this?

It’s not just a legal question about how Congress and the courts can allow his outright corruption, open use of the Justice Department to target perceived enemies, explicit threats to universities and law firms if they don’t cede their independence to the regime, direct attacks on media that criticize him, and defiant trampling on constitutional rights.

It’s also a question about how a president of the United States can be so utterly and uninhibitedly greedy, vindictive, and desirous of monarchic power at the expense of America’s democratic institutions.

A common explanation is that the “guardrails” are now gone. In his second term, Trump has installed people around him who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States, such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who therefore approve everything he wants (such as a $400 million luxury aircraft from Qatar that clearly violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause).

Another explanation I hear, especially from historians, is that crazy rulers — mad kings, ruthless power-hungry strongmen, malignant narcissists who take over nations — tend to attract fanatics who are even crazier than they are. And those fanatics (think Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, RFK Jr., Russell Vought) incite and excite each other and goad the crazy ruler into ever more extreme measures.

I’m sure both go some way to explaining what’s happening to America under Trump 2. But I think they miss the biggest reason for Trump’s utter lack of inhibition this time around.

He believes nothing can stop him from doing whatever the hell he wants because nothing has.

He’s been impeached twice, indicted for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, even convicted of criminal fraud. Not only has he gotten away scot-free, but the Supreme Court has given him presumptive immunity for whatever he does in office.

And a plurality of voters even reelected him president, with more votes than Kamala Harris.

He’s 78 years old, soon to be 79, and figures he won’t ever have to face voters again — either because the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution prohibits it or because by 2028 he’ll have turned the nation into a full dictatorship and can count on being reelected.

Hell, he’s survived an attempted assassination.

So, he truly believes nothing can stop him no matter what he does. This is the core reason that he’s utterly, shamelessly, blatantly uninhibited — feeling totally unconstrained in seeking money and power.

The only potential obstacles are forces that he can’t easily push around because they’re are too rich or powerful — Xi’s China, Vladimir Putin, global bond traders, possibly Harvard University and the U.S. Supreme Court.

So with them he issues stern warnings and big threats. But if they don’t do what he wants he ultimately caves and claims victory nonetheless (as he has with China and Harvard).

There’s one constraining force that in the long run will be the most important of all: the American public.

Like a huge sleeping giant, the American public is not easily stirred to action. Right now, some of the public is loudly opposing Trump — among them, many of you. (Thank you!) His net approval ratings have fallen by nearly 20 points since he took office.

But we’re still too few to credibly threaten congressional Republicans with electoral defeat unless they turn on Trump.

I assure you that the giant will awaken — especially if Trump openly defies the Supreme Court, or arrests American citizens for saying or writing things he dislikes, or takes foreign bribes that clearly compromise America’s national security (such as getting the Saudi’s to invest in his crypto exchange and coins, in exchange for which he gives them America’s most advanced AI chips, which they then give to China). We’re inches away from one or more of these scenarios.

And when the giant awakens, Trump and his regime will be toast.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.