David Frum, a former George W. Bush speechwriter, warned that every day Trump is moving away from the rule of law during his second term in office, and after he leaves, the wake is "likely to resemble the aftermath of the Civil War."

Newsweek reached out to political analysts via email on Monday for comment.

Why It Matters

Frum argued that a pattern of using federal power against political critics and replacing career officials with personal loyalists risked normalizing executive retaliation and weakening independent institutions. He wrote that "the president is going after his enemies and undermining the American system," framing these actions as an existential threat to the separation between public office and personal vendetta.

The president has also long stated that he believes

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