"He's Only Going To Get More Dangerous"

Anyone watching the unhinged, threat- filled performance by narcissistic sociopath Donald "Rump" Trump at his "press conference" yesterday was witnessing Rump in his threatened/ empowered mode:  empowered by a more Trumpian Senate majority, and threatened by the new Democratic majority in the House.  Within a few hours after being asked directly whether he had plans to fire Attorney General and evil elf spokesperson Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and responding with an evasion, Rump finally fired Beauregard in order to install a dangerous flunky whose loyalty was to Rump and not the Constitution and the rule of law.

Adam Serwer provides an overview of the threatened- yet- empowered mindset of the catastrophe occupying the Oval Office:

Trump’s losses in the midterms will not make him more cautious; they will only make him more dangerous. Trump’s only true ideological commitment is to his racially exclusive vision of American citizenship. His authoritarianism is more instinctive than ideological, closely tied to his desire to enrich himself and his allies without facing legal consequences. If the only way the president can save his own skin or that of others implicated in his corruption is to violate the rule of law, then he has no compunctions about doing so...  [snip]

... Trump believes that he and his friends and allies are above the law. There is no act they could commit that would warrant prosecution or sanction. At the same time, there is no act committed by his critics or rivals that could not be subject to prosecution, should he so choose. It is not simply that the president does not believe in the rule of law. It is that he believes the law is a shield that protects him, and a sword that can be used to impale his enemies. Nothing has made this clearer than his constant demands for prosecution of his critics, and his decision to issue federal pardons to men like Dinesh D’Souza and Joe Arpaio, whose violations of the law he regards as trivial because they are pro-Trump sycophants.

Rump rightly sees the existential threat on the horizon approaching fast, hence the firing of Sessions within hours of the polls closing. But that act, of itself, will surely be seen as yet another count of obstruction of justice by the Special Counsel. (Rump, of course, believes there's been no obstruction of justice;  he's only been "protecting himself"!) But attorney and former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa notes some obstacles still in the way of Rump and his flunky obstructing or shutting down the Mueller probe, including provisions in the special counsel regulations for documenting and justifying any actions taken to deny a request or recommendation by Mueller.  With Democratic control of the House starting January 3, the flunky would be called to testify under oath about any such actions, exposing him to obstruction of justice charges himself should he provide false or flimsy excuses.

None of this is to minimize what we believe Rump would do to protect himself:  anything. He's a mortal danger to American democratic institutions now more than ever.  The majority of Americans did what they could to erect a firewall on November 6, so at least now there'll be one part of government that's not going to shelter him and can maybe see to it that the truth about this ugly, unfit, un- American monster comes out.

BONUS:

It cannot be said too often: A 71-year-old narcissistic autocratic sociopath cannot and will not change. Put him in a stressful situation and it is dangerous for all of us

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) November 7, 2018