Institutional independence is now treated as personal betrayal.
When the Supreme Court, its Trump-appointed justices, and the Federal Reserve board assert autonomy from the president, each is recast as a personal betrayer — a 'shell of their original selves' or a 'hostile board' — subordinating institutional roles to a single criterion of loyalty.
The same conclusion keeps arriving from across the workspace's research — 2 topics independently instantiate this theme. Filter the evidence by where it came from:
A co-equal branch's constitutional ruling is recast as personal betrayal and converted into a partisan campaign grievance.
Barring critical networks while calling presidential access 'a privilege, and not a right' subordinates an institutional press role to a single criterion of loyalty.
An independent governor's autonomy is prosecuted as disloyalty through a manufactured for-cause claim, subordinating an institutional role to a loyalty test.
The Fed's institutional autonomy is recast as personal hostility while individual loyalty is exempted — independence judged by a single criterion of allegiance.
Judicial independence exercised even by a Bush-appointed Scalia clerk is recast as disqualifying bias, extending the loyalty criterion to the bench itself.
Justices ruling against the administration, including his own appointees, are recast as personal betrayers rather than independent institutions.