Imagine a President who is convinced that the media, the Washington bureaucracy (led by the State and Defense Departments), and the Washington D.C. establishment are completely against him and must be treated as enemies. When the New York Times or the Washington Post prints a story he does not like, he orders his entire staff to avoid all contacts with their reporters until further notice. He attempts to centralize all power in the White House, particularly with respect to foreign affairs and defense policy, and often keeps his Secretary of State in ignorance of what diplomacy he is conducting. The President also has strong feelings about certain ethnic groups, which he vents in telephone calls to his staff. He does not trust the FBI to carry out critical national security investigations. He also has strong feelings about criminals, and at one point announces, in the middle of a celebrated murder trial, that the accused is guilty. He bluntly attacks judicial decisions with which he disagrees. In the evening, after long days of work, the president often records his feelings, railing again and again at the rich and famous who have always had it in for him. He is obsessed with the adulation showered upon his predecessor, who in the opinion at least of some of his faithful supporters was never rightfully entitled to the White House at all. Late in his first successful campaign for President, this man engaged in secret negotiations with a foreign nation that helped torpedo a diplomatic initiative that might have caused him to lose the election.
) He also fired all the gop attorneys.
