Trump’s Too Dumb to Know, but Philip Glass’s Symphony Is About Him

This dynamic, in turn, creates the opening for a particular kind of leader. When reverence for law collapses, Lincoln argues, men of ambition will not be lacking. Such figures seek distinction above all. And when the glory of building has already been claimed by others, these ambitious men will seek distinction by tearing down. Lincoln’s language is stark. A man of towering ambition, he says, will pursue fame “whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen.”

It’s impossible to read this description without seeing how exactly it fits Trump’s conduct. His contempt for law is not episodic or rhetorical; it is foundational. Courts matter only when they serve him. He casts legal accountability as persecution. He elevates loyalty over legality, impulse over judgment, grievance over governance. Mobs are not an aberration but a tool—summoned, legitimated, and excused. The result is precisely the “mobocratic spirit” Lincoln warned would rot a republic from within and prepare the ground for despotism.

Lincoln’s remedy is as important as his diagnosis. He does not call for charismatic saviors or heroic leaders. He calls for simple “reverence for the laws”; what he famously terms, in high Enlightenment rhetoric, a “political religion.” Lincoln is explicit that bad laws may exist and should be repealed. But while they remain in force, they must be obeyed, for the sake of example. “There is no grievance,” he insists, “that is a fit object of redress by mob law.” The alternative is not liberty but a descent into lawlessness that invites tyranny.