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Personally I think what terrifies a certain class of people about Trump is just that he seems actually interested in wielding power, and has, I dunno, 'agentic' behavior when he does it. There's clearly some objective he's swinging towards, even if he's taking actions that appear stupid.
He did it quite inartfully in the first term. The second term, there's a certain amount of focus and relentlessness that probably scares such people even more. So much happened in just the first 100 days. We're 8 months in, and every week or so another angle of attack is unleashed, and it sure looks like the legs are getting knocked out from under the activist class. Simultaneously too many targets to actually focus on, AND fewer resources to divide amongst the various causes.
I assume it feels like an existential battle for them, whether it really is or is not.
Compare it to a Romney or even Bush-like figure, who are seemingly more content to twist the dials on the administrative state a few degrees here and there and not interfere with their enemy's tactics (or disrupt their funding) so the actual 'balance of power' doesn't shift much.
For better or worse, Trump is taking steps that will actually make it harder for the dems to regroup and mount another offensive, and the one thing that is missing thus far, the one seal that hasn't been broken, is actually prosecuting and jailing the people who are best positioned to thwart his power.
And in a sense, that is the most terrifying thing of all, since that sword of Damocles will hang around for the next couple years, certain people can never feel completely comfortable that the FBI won't be showing up at their door sometime soon.
That's my take, anyway. There's the people with the symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome who aren't actually threatened by him, and then there's those whose whole raison d'etre is acquiring and wielding political power, and this current situation is threatening to remove that possibility entirely for them.
I would argue that this was a feature. Bush, Obama, McCain, Clinton all had some investment with the status quo. They were playing the game by its written and unwritten rules. If any of them had seen the opportunity to cross the Rubicon and make themselves dictator, they would likely not have taken it, because nobody wanted to go down as that figure in the history books. For all the differences between GWB and Bernie Sanders, neither is willing to throw the democracy experiment under the bus to beat the other.
Not so with Trump. He is acting with a self-interest that would make most kleptocrats blush. He will happily burn 100$ of commons to earn 1$ for himself. He is prizing personal loyalty far beyond qualification.
I am however wondering what will happen to the Trump party once Trump finally croaks. As any player of Crusader Kings can tell you, these systems of personal loyalty are all fine while you are alive, but tend to get very messy on succession.
You'll note that Romney and Bush were not exempt from slanderous character assassination; the only difference between Bush and Hitler were that Hitler was elected. Romney was cruel to animals, had an awful wife, wanted to reintroduce slavery.
Of course Romney genuinely seems to be guilty of nothing more than social awkwardness and Bush had nothing to do with Hitler.
Obama, and in particular Biden, were definitely guilty of targeting their domestic political enemies as well.
Isn't Romney a private equity guy, one of the class of people specializing in what's basically elegant asset stripping?
I don't remember the "reintroduce slavery" argument. I remember the much-to-do about him traveling with his dog in a crate strapped to the roof (which I can't say I like but doesn't really have anything to do with Presidential qualifications).
But yes, on the left much was made of his job being to buy up a company to saddle it with another company's debt.
That said, Romney's social awkwardness specifically was of the the "What could a banana cost, like $10?" variety. To the left, he was like an out-of-touch manager who couldn't empathize with the working class at all.
The democrats also, in one of the most brazen acts of political gaslighting I think I've ever seen, somehow managed to turn Romney's own efforts at sex-based affirmative action into evidence of his sexism.
I remember that. Though I think it was less about sexism and more going back to the sounding like an out-of-touch manager. "How do I talk about women? Talk about binders of resumes!"
No, it was sexism. "Binders" was used to imply that he wants to "bind" women.
It wasn't even that. It was a weird phrase that feminists seized as a Schelling point for hating Romney; the rationalizations for why the phrase was offensive came later.
From "Why I defend scoundrels, part 2" by Scott Alexander:
And from "Why I specifically defend the scoundrel Mitt Romney", idem:
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