Trump has a plan to destroy democracy. Why haven’t people heard of it?

For a nation that still prides itself on its exceptionalism, Americans are exceptionally indifferent to the workings of their own government. One explanation for that complacency is that, at least in recent times, our government’s powers have rarely been wielded specifically for the purpose of intimidating and harming American citizens in the manner of less benign societies, such as dictatorships and autocracies.

Republicans now aim to change that, and they are convinced that if Donald Trump is elected in November, he will provide them their moment.

While all Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan’s have taken advantage of their stewardship of government to gorge themselves at the public trough, Trump’s first term might have been the most egregious in history.

But even Trump’s record of craven political corruption was apparently not enough for the people who now dominate the GOP.

While draining public funds through corporate tax cuts and exploiting the country’s surfeit of natural resources is still the GOP’s paramount goal, the opportunity to transform the tools of government into a weapon to attack their political opponents now appears irresistible, particularly if those tools are handed to them by an administration that simply does not care how they are used.