Richardson dives into Russell Vought, the second worst person in the Trump Administration after Stephen Miller. If Miller personifies Adam Serwer's dictum that "The cruelty is the point," then Vought is the voice of the Christian Nationalist attack on the state's ability to do things for people. From his perch at OMB, Vought is the one who wants to take Grover Norquist's old line about wanting to "shrink government to the size where you can drown it in a bathtub" and making that a reality.
Yglesias has a piece where he argues that politicians aren't ever "authentic", they are all performers, and some are better than others. I don't like the framing of that, because he points to actors who aren't REALLY what they portray, but it "feels" authentic, because they are good actors. The thing a good actor does is create authenticity. Good politicians do that, too.
What this has meant in the past is that we elect people - especially to the presidency - who come across as authentic, even though on many levels, that's just an act. For Republicans, this has meant railing against "government" even as you provide benefits for your constituents. It has meant decrying abortion without REALLY doing things to make it illegal. Now, some Republicans are authentically and deeply opposed to abortions, but the party as a whole would rather run on the issue than ban the procedure.
Coming back to Vought, we have someone who really is fundamentally opposed to the constitutional order. He's said as much. Here's Richardson's summary:
In 2022, Vought argued that the United States is in a “post constitutional moment” that “pays only lip service to the old Constitution.” He attributes that crisis to “the Left,” which he says “quietly adopted a strategy of institutional change,” by which he appears to mean the growth of the federal government to protect the rights of all Americans. He attributes that change to the presidency of President Woodrow Wilson beginning in 1913. Vought advocates what he calls “radical constitutionalism” to destroy the power of the modern administrative state and instead elevate the president to supreme authority.
Vought is not as performatively cruel as Miller, but he swims in the same authoritarian swamp. He does not believe in the Madisonian system of checks and balances as a bulwark against tyranny; he wants tyranny. This is how so many other evangelical Christians have come to love a thrice married vulgarian who has likely never been to church except as a photo op.
The problem that both Miller and Vought face is that they have mistaken far right rhetoric with what the American public really wants. Americans don't want Latin American gangs on their streets, but they don't want to see the guy they work with and like deported; they don't want to see families sundered and children separated from their families. In Vought's case, Americans don't like "waste and fraud" but as DOGE discovered, there really isn't that much waste and fraud at the national level.
The result is that the Trump administration says it's cutting fat, but really it's cutting muscle and bone.
This is unpopular.
There are basically three pillars left to defend American democracy. The lower courts continue to deny Trump executive fiat powers. Some states are trying to deny Trump agency within their states. But the most important one is that people really don't like what Trump is doing. In his piece on authenticity, Yglesias made the good point that Biden was unable to do the performative part of being president, but increasingly, Trump isn't able to either. His speeches are rambling nonsense, his energy is flagging and his appearances rarer.
Trump can still dominate the news cycle, but doing so requires greater and greater outrages, which makes him less and less popular. As he - and Vought and Miller - try and consolidate autocratic rule, they will come into conflict with the wishes of the American people more and more. If and when the economy crashes, that will be the final nail.
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