Trump’s following his campaign promises, but they’re threatening the rule of law

Every day, Donald Trump shatters previous understandings of the presidency and America’s role in the world.

But in his rush to wield vast power and fulfill campaign promises, the new commander in chief is straining the rule of law and gambling with global stability.

Before his second term began, it was assumed that a president wouldn’t simply refuse to spend billions of dollars already authorized by Congress and deploy a private citizen, like Elon Musk, to obliterate huge government agencies enshrined in US law.

The idea that the White House would simply ignore a court order was more a theoretical question for a law school seminar than a potential reality.

Firing government aid workers living in world hotspots would have been unthinkable. As would disrupting a program credited with saving the lives of millions of HIV/AIDS patients.

No other president hatched a plan to force Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt and Jordan — a step that could threaten the Camp David accord, fracture the Hashemite Kingdom and effectively amount to ethnic cleansing.