538 article title - rhetorical? Satire? "Is Trump's Legitimacy At Risk?"
(my thought - was his ILlegitimacy ever in doubt? This sort of headline only confirms the media normalization effort)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-trumps-legitimacy-at-risk/
Last Tuesday was not a good day for President Trump. Within minutes his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to charges including a campaign finance violation, and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was found guilty on eight counts, including fraud charges. So, not a banner day for his presidency. But was it a day that fundamentally changed it?
I don’t mean to ask whether it changed the trajectory of his presidency. On that, time will tell, etc. etc. Instead, I’m interested in something more core to Trump’s presidency as it currently exists. Has the guilt of Trump’s aides affected his ability to govern?
Max Boot, a writer for the Washington Post, addressed this question in a recent article: “Trump is now an illegitimate president whose election is tainted by fraud,” he wrote. Illegitimate. That word caught my eye, in part because presidents rely upon legitimacy to enact their agenda. Without it, their power can quickly erode.
“Legitimacy” can sound like a vague concept, but it has some clear definitions as far the presidency is concerned. Political scientist Ian Hurd defined it as “the belief that a rule, institution, or leader has the right to govern.” So will last Tuesday’s news undercut Trump’s democratic authority? Change everything? Reveal new vulnerabilities in the administration’s right to hold power? Not so fast. Legitimacy is complicated and takes many forms.
snip - much more to read.
= new reply since forum marked as read
