https://apple.news/A1C6kVIGlSD2AMo2pAdgMzQ

 

Michael D’Antonio writes opinion pieces for CNN. He previously wrote a book “The Truth About Trump.”

 

This article is fascinating in a morbid way, about Trump’s contempt for rules, conventions, promises, commitments. Breaking the rules and ignoring what others think have been his lifelong practices.

 

(CNN) President-elect Donald Trump signaled who he is when he announced he was going to remain executive producer of “The Apprentice” and then dismissed as “ridiculous” the Central Intelligence Agency’s concern that Russia hacked his opponent’s computers to help him win the White House. When given a choice between unreality as represented by TV and the real-world work of protecting the United States from Vladimir Putin, Trump stayed loyal to the money-making fiction and threw the CIA under the bus.

Consider that Trump has refused to sit for nearly all the daily intelligence briefings, which have been prepared for presidents since the 1960s, and his response to the CIA seems consistent with his view of himself and the world. He said he doesn’t need intelligence briefings because he’s so “smart.” By this measure, each one of his predecessors, from Kennedy to Reagan to Obama, must have been woefully unintelligent. At the very least, they worried far too much about the norms that traditionally guided the presidency.
Trump has long used manipulative techniques to get what he wants. These tendencies to shade the truth, break the rules and ignore the damage he does were apparent when he first made himself known as a publicity hound and developer in New York, and they continue to be an essential part of his character.

 

No rules for me

 
When Donald Trump proposed his first big project in the 1970s, he called on politicians whom his father had befriended and funded to grease the skids. In those days, local politics was the kind of swamp Trump now says he wants to drain, and yet he swam as well as anyone. The last step in his bid for approval required that he provide a signed contract indicating he owned the right to develop the site. Trump submitted paperwork, but since it was unsigned it shouldn’t have been accepted. Mysteriously, the city approval came, and Trump later bragged to me about pulling off the deception.

 
Less obvious, but no less significant, was Trump’s decision to use a contractor who hired scores of undocumented workers, in violation of the law, to tear down the Bonwit Teller department store at the site of what is now Trump Tower. In the same period, he destroyed architectural artwork he was supposed to preserve and adopted a fake persona to serve as a spokesman for himself. In Trump’s estimation, the deception was good business.

 

Fast forward to the 2016 election, and Trump is insulting war hero John McCain, inciting the kind of violent practices against protesters used in “the good old days” and demeaning almost every one of his opponents. When he was concerned about losing the election, he began speaking of a “rigged” system, undercutting public confidence in the foundation of the American democracy. The norms of politics have prevented every candidate in modern history from making such dangerous statements. However, Trump has not accepted those rules.

 
Now, as President-elect, Trump believes the standards accepted by other newly elected presidents out of respect for America’s political culture don’t apply to him. Others held press conferences almost immediately after the votes were tallied. Trump has yet to hold one. Others put their assets in trust to avoid conflicts of interest. Trump will not.
He has never acted as if the rules applied to him and, so far, he’s keeping up the practice.

 

One of Trump’s oft-used methods for getting what he wants involves flipping narratives to benefit him. He first did this in the early 1970s, when the federal government charged the Trump Organization with discriminating against minority applicants for apartments. Instead of acknowledging the public good in equal housing and respecting a GOP administration’s effort to encourage equality, Trump put himself above all other considerations. Crying “reverse discrimination,” he claimed he was the real victim in the situation. And though the Trump Organization eventually agreed to comply with fair housing rules, he fought hard against doing the right thing.

More opposite talk came from Trump when he argued that black men have advantages in life that he would have wanted in his youth. “I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage.” Every bit of data available suggested that the opposite was true, but the facts wouldn’t get in the way of Trump making a point that played to the racial fears and anxieties of many whites.
In the election campaign, Trump indulged in opposite talk almost every time he was challenged about his fitness for office. Well known for wild rants, he nevertheless insisted he had the best temperament of anyone running for president. Now, as President-elect, Trump is practicing opposite talk without saying a word. By appointing a climate change denier to run the Environmental Protection Agency and a fierce critic of public schools to run the Department of Education, President-elect Trump is communicating that he’s willing to move from opposite talk to opposite action.

 

Read on to see the many rules that Trump has broken and ignored and will continue to ignore. He has said that the president is exempt from conflicts of interest, so he will continue to own his many properties.

 

We are about to see four years of unprecedented corruption as foreign powers clear the way for Trump hotels, casinos, and golf clubs, and curry favor with the president by enriching his children and his company.

 

All this violates the “emoluments” clause of the Constitution, which forbids government officials from accepting any gifts from foreign powers, but no one can enforce the Constitution other than Congress, by impeachment. What are the odds of that?