Opinion | Trump campaigned to protect himself, not help Republicans

Opinion | Trump campaigned to protect himself, not help Republicans

Destroying the system. "Unlike President Richard M. Nixon, Trump is not going to resign if the institutions of the state prove that he has broken the law. He can’t resign: To do so would bring down not only his administration but also his business and his reputation, the basis of which is his personal brand. He will try, instead, to break the institutions — and he will need the support of his community of believers to do it. That’s why his campaign rhetoric wasn’t designed to help the Republican Party: It was designed to provide him with a claque of supporters who have bought into his message that the media are “enemies of the state,” that Democrats promote chaos and mob violence, that only he is protecting them from a nonexistent “invasion.” As he seeks to undermine the Justice Department, to denigrate law enforcement — and above all to stay in office — he will ask those loyalists to put pressure on Congress, to support him on social media, to provide counter-narratives, to back up the fictions he is going to conjure up. That’s how he will, in the words of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, “fight back.”"