We're Past the Tipping Point

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” — James Madison, Federalist 47.

I asked ChatGPT for an image of Trump sitting on a throne of bullshit, but they said it had to be “kept within respectful and policy-compliant limits.”

Maybe we missed the exact moment it happened. But last week, it was obvious that we have long since passed the tipping point.¹ We’re not slouching toward it, or waiting for some imaginary redline to be crossed. After years of warning about threats to democracy, the rule of law, norms, corruption, toxic narcissism, it was all right there. Live in the Oval Office.

Trump may sit upon a throne of bullshit. But it is a throne.

Last week, Trump imposed trillions of dollars in tariffs, suspended them, and exempted companies who paid him tribute, all without any input from a Congress that surrendered its powers to him with barely a whimper.

Indeed, that’s the point. There is no process. No strategy. No check. No balance. Just the arbitrary whimsy and malice of the one man, who knows that he can never be held accountable for the shit storm he has unleashed on the markets and the constitutional order.

“L'État, c'est moi,” Louis XIV boasted. For us The State is Trump’s id.

And Trump is patently luxuriating in his unchecked power — the power to move markets with a single post; to hand out stock tips to reward friends; seize control of formerly “independent” agencies; threaten judges with impeachment and issue orders to punish enemies. He continues to dismantle the federal government, undermine press freedoms, bully law firms, penalize universities, deport protesters without due process and defy judicial rulings — even as billionaires and nation states alike continue to line up, as he so memorably put it, to “kiss my ass.”

One after another, the castrati barristers² and their Reek-like brethren in American business have decided that it is a rational business choice to obey in advance, lest they be destroyed by caprice. ³

Even Bill Maher has been Stockholm-syndromed; his brain thoroughly celebrefried after a dinner at which his vanity was suitably tickled by his Nibbishness, who, he assures us, is gracious, good-humored, and self-deprecatory in private.⁴

Happy Monday.

I know there are a lot of claims on your time and your support. But these are remarkable times, and we are very much in this together. And I’m immensely grateful for your support.

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The full playbook

We were warned, of course, and none of this came as a thief in the night. There was nothing subtle about Trump’s intentions, and the authortarian playbook is neither mysterious nor subtle. As Anne Applebaum has written: Hungary’s Viktor Orbán “launched a fourteen year assault on his country’s institutions”:

[He] slowly replaced civil servants with loyalists; used economic pressure and regulation to destroy the free press; robbed universities of their independence, and shut one of them down; politicized the court system; and repeatedly changed the constitution to give himself electoral advantage.

And then - surprise! Without checks and balances, without transparency and journalism and the rule of law, Hungary first became corrupt, and then poor.

Sound familiar?

**

And just last night, the man who has placed himself so flamboyantly above the law, essentially told the nine justices of the Supreme Court that they can fuq all the way off. Via The New York Times:

The Trump administration on Sunday evening doubled down on its assertion that a federal judge cannot force it to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month.

In a brief legal filing, the Justice Department reiterated its view that courts lack the ability to dictate steps that the White House should take in seeking to return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to U.S. soil, because the president alone has broad powers to handle foreign policy.

“The federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” lawyers for the department wrote. “That is the ‘exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”…

The conflict has persisted even though the Supreme Court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release from Salvadoran custody. Trump officials have in fact already admitted that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane to El Salvador in the first place.

The one guy who gets Trump

Here, however we come to the great irony: It seems increasingly obvious that the only one who really truly understands Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin.

Trump may be a bully, but Putin is the Uber-bully, and he knows that deep down, Trump is a frightened, bitter child, and a coward; easily flattered and infinitely needy. While others quail and quiver and pay tribute, Putin is humiliating him.

Two days ago, Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff met with Putin and Trump begged Russia “to 'get moving' on Ukraine ceasefire.”

Putin’s answer?

On Sunday, Russian missiles hit Ukrainian city of Sumy, killing more than 30 | AP News

The two ballistic missiles hit around 10:15 a.m., officials said. Images from the scene showed lines of black body bags on the side of the road, while more bodies were seen wrapped in foil blankets among the debris. Video footage also showed fire crews fighting to extinguish the shells of burned-out cars among the rubble from damaged buildings.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following Russia's missile attack that killed at least 20 civilians in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Nota Bene

Franklin Foer: “Trump Has Found His Class Enemy: The president unleashes a Marxist theory of power—but against knowledge workers, not billionaires.” [Gift link.]

Law partners and university presidents like to talk their way out of problems, and they apparently believe that they can ultimately evade the fate that befalls those who resist Trump. They assume that he merely craves gestures of submission—and that once obeisance has been paid, he will move on to his next target.

That, however, underestimates the social revolution that the Trump administration is trying to unleash. Its goal isn’t just to shatter a few institutions. It intends to crush the power and authority of whole professions, to severely weaken, if not purge, a social class.

The target of the administration’s campaign is a stratum of society that’s sometimes called the professional managerial class, or the PMC, although there’s not one universal moniker that MAGA applies to the group it is now crushing. That group includes society’s knowledge workers, its cognitive elite, the winners of the tournament that is the American meritocracy. It covers not only lawyers, university administrators, and professors, but also consultants, investment bankers, scientists, journalists, and other white-collar workers who have prospered in the information age.

Monday dogs

Auggie gets some secret cheese treats while we watch “The Pitt”.

1. When was the tipping point?

• When he incited a mob to violently attack the Capitol? And got away with it?

• Was it Inauguration Day when he pardoned the J6 rioters after a ceremony that featured a monkey gallery stocked with the nation’s billionaire oligarchs?

• Was it when ABC caved to Trump’s bogus lawsuit?

• When SCOTUS immunized him?

• When Congress failed to convict him?

• Or maybe it was way before that. When he came down the Golden escalator and the GOP began its long march of humiliation?

Discuss among yourselves.

2. Trump announces deals with more law firms for a combined $600 million

Trump’s punishments and the deals firms have made with him have rattled the legal community, with attorneys fearing that his crackdown will imperil what causes and cases firms are willing to take up. The latest deals on Friday marked an increase in the pledges and pushed the combined amount to nearly $1 billion across nine law firms.

In a series of social media posts on Friday, Trump said he had reached a deal with four firms — all of them among the country’s wealthiest — to provide $125 million each in pro bono and other free legal work for causes he supports, including aiding veterans, fighting antisemitism and “ensuring fairness in our justice system.”

The price has gone up as more firms have struck deals with Trump. The first firm to strike a deal, Paul Weiss, promised $40 million in pro bono services, while the next three pledged $100 million each.

Trump identified four firms participating in one agreement as Kirkland & Ellis; A&O Shearman; Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett; and Latham & Watkins.

3. Matt Levine: Safe Havens May Not Be - Bloomberg

And Bloomberg reports that the Retail Industry Leaders Association decided not to bring a lawsuit over the tariffs, “even though the group’s research indicated a legal case had a good chance of succeeding on the merits,” in part because of “the potential challenge of finding law firms willing to bring suits over tariffs in light of Trump’s attacks on some of the biggest names in the legal profession.”

4. "Real Time" host Bill Maher described Trump as more gracious and good-humored than he expected. "You can hate me for it, but I'm not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured," Maher said, using words that sounded more like a hostage video than a sober assessment of the toxic narcissist-in-chief.