The New York Times reports: Over the course of just 17 hours this weekend, President Trump assailed John McCain, Chuck Schumer, Stephen Curry, the National Football League, Roger Goodell, Iran and Kim Jong-un — the “Little Rocket Man.” And that was on his day off.

While football players knelt, locked arms or stayed in their locker rooms during the national anthem in protest on Sunday, any notion that Mr. Trump may soften his edge, even under the discipline of a new chief of staff, seemed fanciful. While he has restrained himself for brief stretches, his penchant for punching eventually reasserts itself.

Never in modern times has an occupant of the Oval Office seemed to reject so thoroughly the nostrum that a president’s duty is to bring the country together. Relentlessly pugnacious, energized by a fight, unwilling to let any slight go unanswered, Mr. Trump has made himself America’s apostle of anger, its deacon of divisiveness. [Continue reading…]

Among journalists and elsewhere, there seems to be a pervasive naivety around the issue of Trump’s divisiveness — as though this represents the unfortunate consequence of a temperamental defect, an inability to moderate his language, or simply the nature of Trump being Trump.

Instead, Trump’s divisiveness should be named for what it is — not simply an expression of his vileness as a human being but the very core of his classical and dictatorial method of rule.

Division is the root of Trump’s power.