Politico

The lessons we can take from how easily institutions have folded to Trump’s remarkable revenge campaign.

The details are varied but two themes are consistent. The first is an effort — far more organized and disciplined than any precedent from Trump’s first term — to bring institutions who have earned the president’s ire to heel. The second theme is even more surprising: The swiftness with which supposedly powerful and supposedly independent institutions have responded — with something akin to the trembling acquiescence of a child surrendering his lunch money to a big kid on the morning walk to school.

Leaders of the institutions who have complied with Trump’s demands do not accept the White House’s idea that the basic premises of American governance have changed, and a New Normal has arrived. Quite the contrary, what people are yearning for is a return to the Old Normal, in which familiar revenue lines and profit margins stay intact.

Trump’s actions have illuminated more vividly than ever just how many wealthy private institutions have their finances and policies enmeshed with the federal government — though it is hardly a new phenomenon. What is different is the willingness of Trump and his lieutenants to use this leverage so unabashedly. Along the way, he has revealed the institutions to be more vulnerable to intimidation than their leaders themselves may have recognized.