The Founders of this country are in two groups... [W]e live in the second American republic because the first American republic under the Articles of… - David Cay Johnston

[A] lot of people have looked around after 28 years, from when they were promised all these things by Ronald Reagan... [and] realized that for the bottom 90% of Americans incomes are unchanged... even though the country is more than twice as wealthy in real terms, and productivity per capita is up 70%; for every dollar the economy put out back then, per person, in real terms, it puts our $1.70 today. And they've said, "Where's the beef?" ...[T]hat disconnect is ...opening up an opportunity to get people to see what the government has done that's contrary to their interests, because Adam Smith said "Any policy that benefits the majority of the people must be a good thing for the society."

The Trump administration deposited political termites throughout the structure of our government. Their task, in the words of Steve Bannon, is the "deconstruction of the administrative state." ...[H]e means to undo the tax, trade, regulatory, and other means... [T]he end game is... a government that looks first after the best-off... not those most in need of a helping hand in the form of a sound education, clean water, and other basics of a healthy society... These termites operate out of sight... to bully or scare scientists into leaving, remove from public access... public records... necessary to enforce environmental, worker safety, and other laws.

Trump has himself reduced his life philosophy to a single word—revenge. ...Repeatedly he has said in talks and in books that destroying the lives of people he considers disloyal gives him pleasure. That Trump does not recognize ethical limits on conduct... derives from his fundamental character, narcissism.