Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

by David Frum

Enraged by information that law enforcement agencies had surveilled his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, President Trump emitted a bizarre sequence of tweets on March 4, 2017. Trump alleged that former president Obama had ordered listening devices installed to monitor Trump himself. “How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate stuff. Bad or sick guy!”47 In an effort to substantiate Trump’s wild and false claims, press secretary Sean Spicer repeated at the White House briefing podium an assertion by a Fox News personality that Britain’s signal agency GCHQ had carried out the “tapping” at Obama’s behest. That assertion was in turn based on rumors circulated on Russian television and pro-Moscow websites. An obviously embarrassed Spicer raced through a mumbled reading of the allegation.