Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, argued in an email that two factors played key roles:
First, underneath all of this is a climate of fear, a recognition that Trump will not hesitate to use public power to hurt anyone he deems to be an enemy.
Second, Trump's politicization of public-sector institutions, like the Department of Justice, paves the way for credibly threatening the private sector. Every part of the federal government is aligned on the project of bringing private institutions to heel.
In contrast to the chaos of Trump's first term, Moynihan wrote, the current administration has shown an exceptional ability to coordinate its drive to subordinate private-sector targets:
I cannot think of any prior presidential administration that has invested so much preparation and political capital on asserting control of institutions they perceive as hostile, often using extralegal means to do so.
