Never seen a president so relentlessly attacking his own vital institutions before

[bigtree]

...especially when their party controls all three branches of government.

Link to tweet

Julian Borger‏ @julianborger 17m17 minutes ago
Even by 2017 standards, this is an astonishing attack by an incumbent president on US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, calling them "deep State authorities", "rigged and corrupt".

[BannonsLiver]

1. I guess none of us have seen a president so in the palm of a foreign govt.

New ground is broken daily, and not in a good way.

[dhol82]

2. +1

[bigtree]

4. Tillerson busy dismantling the State Dept.

...

[uponit7771]

9. +1

[Skittles]

3. Putin talk

[marylandblue]

5. An effective dictator co-opts law enforcement and intelligence services

An idiot makes them into enemies. So far, Trump has only coopted Customs and Border Patrol, he hasn't even tried with anyone else.

[cheyanne]

10. It may not be the best strategy for Trump to coopt the IC by claiming that they are out to get him.

But when you have the power to get rid of heads of the agencies by replacing them with your own henchmen, it's a good idea to delegitimatize the agencies in the public eye first.

[cheyanne]

6. Stop thinking of Trump as governing as a president; he is governing as an autocrat.

An autocrat first creates an internal enemy and an external enemy: Trump's were Hispanics internally and all other nations externally.

Then he attacks the other power centers in the democracy: intelligence community, congress, judiciary and media. He needs to delegitamatize them or strip them of all power. His most formidable enemy is the intelligence community, so he constantly belittles and attacks them. The judiciary also is the target of constant complaints disparaging judges and their decisions.

While he can denigrate democrats and the media as his enemies because they criticize him. But he needs to find a way to dis empower the Republicans in congress while pretending to be their "leader". He has criticized them, refused to campaign for their agenda, and blamed them for all failures, as he steps on any attempt they make to pass their agenda.

Republicans are trying to govern as a one-party state. Trump is governing as a one-man state: autocrat.

[HipChick]

8. He's not govering...he's a TV president..a puppet...Gets his intel from Faux News

Putin owns him..

[ansible]

7. JFK did, and it ended badly for him