Trump’s vision of governance reminds me of nothing so much as the declaration attributed to Louis XIV: “L’Etat, c’est moi”: I am the state

The new Trump administration is busy. In a fury of executive orders, the restored president has frozen hiring at the federal government, cut off large amounts of science and research funding, ended or severely curtailed international programs in women’s health and HIV treatment, attempted to unilaterally amend the constitution to deny citizenship to hundreds of thousands, cut off aid to Ukraine, provoked a diplomatic spat with Colombia, and renamed the Gulf of Mexico in official documents as “the Gulf of America.”

Many of these moves are stunts and distractions, meant to appease Trump’s base of aggrieved culture warriors. Others are meant to further Trump’s personal power, and to make sure that no obstacles will be presented to his second term agenda of malice, retribution, and corrupt self-dealing.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist