Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Politically, this is surely a strange and disturbing time, but one of its oddest, most discouraging features is to watch Donald Trump operate as an agent of systemic change while his panicky opponents try to defend an obsolescent status quo. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt’s right-wing enemies, they cry for help from the courts to prevent an activist, mission-driven president from violating established political and moral norms.

Help! Trump is using all his presidential powers, including some that he may not constitutionally possess, and has reduced Congress’s role to that of a cheering section.

Help! Trump is slashing the federal bureaucracy, closing Congressionally created agencies, and throwing lots of good people out of work.

Help! Trump is changing U.S. foreign policy, redefining enemies and allies, and cuddling up to dictators.

Help! Trump is putting pressure on the press, the schools, and the cultural establishment to adopt conservative nationalist cultural values.

And so on. All these charges are arguably accurate, but what they really amount to is an allegation that Trump and his cohorts are politically serious actors – representatives of a mass movement for change – who are committing the ab-normal act of doing what they promised they would do if they took power. As the Democrats’ cries for help mount to the skies, it is unclear whether what they are complaining about is the content of the MAGA program or Trump’s disrespect for established procedures.

If the basic objections are procedural, then one needs to ask whether the Democrats understand how American presidents beginning with F.D.R. vastly extended presidential power and reduced the role of Congress and the States – and more generally, how programs of systemic reform alter old-school constitutional norms. But if their basic objections are to the right-wing content of MAGA’s program, then we need to ask what left-wing content they are proposing as an alternative to it.

In fact, the relationship........

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