What Trump Expects in the Midterms

One of my main takeaways from studying political science as an undergrad came from an entry-level course taught by a grad student. This guy pounded the following phrase into our brain. Repeatedly.

“The rules of the game are important.”

“Why are they important?”, you might ask.

Because they’re bigger than any one man or woman. They check the powerful as much as the powerless. They check the haves as much as the have-nots. They set expectations, create order, and when executed well, lead to a functioning society.

At least that’s how the rule of law should work in theory.

This grad student warned us (back in 2007) that the second the rules start to become meaningless — or applied differently to different people — that’s the second we start to lose democracy. It fractures. It frays at the edges. And in a similar way to how Hemingway described going bankrupt, democratic decay happens gradually, then suddenly.

We’ve witnessed a lot of this in America over the past decade. Now ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in a few days, we’re seeing an acceleration of an administration bending or outright breaking the rules so they can win the game at almost…