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From a comment on Reddit’s Daystrom Institute, a Star Trek subreddit:
The framing of this statement made it clear they were switching from talking of a specific fictional character to obliquely mentioning former President Donald Trump. So, I have a question for the non-Trumpers, never-Trumpers, and former Trumpers of The Motte: prior to and excluding the events of January 6, did you honestly believe Trump was a Hitler-to-be, a potential ender of democracy, a dictator thug, or any other sort of authoritarian who would end the rule of law and instead rule by might? And if so, whose opinion on the matter did you value?
(Please note that you will probably not convince me personally, and a Gish gallop will make me even less likely to listen to your arguments.)
I thought then and think now he's a corrupt huckster and a clown, and I'm sure he would like to be a dictator (I don't think he respects the rule of law or the Constitution whatsoever), but because he's petty and egotistical and would love a world in which no one can tell him no, not because he has anything as coherent as a fascist ideology.
But he's not the first president who wanted in his heart to rule as an emperor, and so far our checks and balances have prevented that. Trump fans decry the "Deep State" for foiling him, but much of that was simply the obstructionism that was built into our system of government by design.
I think the people decrying the deep state were getting at the notion that Trump was put under an isolated demand for rigor, and that if he aligned with their ideology, they would not have been as obstructive. The essay about resisting Trump from inside his administration was notable for a reason, and it was a man who didn't even work directly for Trump, but for his DHS secretary.
I think there is a degree of truth to that (certainly many people within the government disliked Trump and opposed him, passive-aggressively if not with outright insubordination), but I think this is dramatically overstated by his followers. Every president has had to contend with an entrenched bureaucracy that is willing to wait them out, in a system that's set up to make it hard for presidents to just sweep away all opposition to their agenda.
But has it been to the extent Trump was scrutinized? It seems kind of obvious that he was different and repulsive to the people who made up the administration's staff in a way previous presidents were not.
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I'm struggling to think of examples of, e.g., Obama being hamstrung by uncooperative executive bureaucracies.
I do think that at the point that generals are lying to the President and deliberately disobeying directives, that rises to a level of insubordination worthy of being called exceptional.
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