How Trump is weaponizing the government

President Trump, once a casino owner and always a man in search of his next deal, is fond of a poker analogy when sizing up partners and adversaries.

- By JONATHAN J. COOPER

ROBERTO SCHMIDT Getty Images THE PRESIDENT has gone after universities, law firms, media and individuals.

“We have much bigger and better cards than they do,” he said of China last month. Compared with Canada, he said in June, “we have all the cards. We have every single one.” And most famously, he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelen-sky in their Oval Office confrontation this year: “You don’t have the cards.”

The phrase offers a window into the worldview of Trump, who has spent his second stint in the White House amassing cards to deploy in pursuit of his interests.

Seven months into his second term, he’s accumulated presidential power that he’s used against universities, media companies, law firms and individuals he dislikes. A man who ran for president as an angry victim of a weaponized “deep state” is, in many ways, supercharging government power and training it on his opponents.

And the supporters who responded to his complaints about overzealous Democrats aren't recoiling. They're egging him on.

“Weaponizing the state to win the culture war has been essential to their agenda,” said David N. Smith, a University of Kansas sociologist who has extensively researched the motivations of Trump voters. “They didn’t like it when the state was mobilized to restrain Trump, but they're happy to see the state acting to fight the culture war on their behalf.”

Amassing power

Trump began putting the federal government to work for him within hours of taking office in January, and he’s been collecting and using power in novel ways since. It's a high-velocity push to carry out his political agendas and grudges.