Everyone involved knew their roles in this drama by heart, and fell right into them with gusto.

A brief, fascinating look at one “microcosm of the larger dynamic” of Trump 2.0 from Yuval Levin.

At the root of the contempt in which Donald Trump and his team hold many of the core institutions of our society is not how they view those various other actors but how they view themselves. The president and those around him appear to understand themselves as outsiders fighting the government, not as insiders running it.