Opinion | John Bolton: For Donald Trump, the Only Loyalty Is Fealty

Four years ago this Monday, Donald Trump pressured Mike Pence to pursue a surreal interpretation of the vice president’s constitutional role in counting the Electoral College’s votes. Mr. Pence refused, igniting Mr. Trump’s fury for not subordinating either philosophical or constitutional principles in service to him, thereby showing “disloyalty.” Thus ended Mr. Pence’s usefulness to Trumpworld, albeit honorably for Mr. Pence.

Now Mr. Trump is selecting key personnel for his second term. Although the prospective appointees vary in philosophy, competence and character, one requirement for them is unfortunately consistent: the likelihood that they will carry out Mr. Trump’s orders blind to norms and standards underlying effective governance, or perhaps even to legality.

Mr. Trump’s obsessiveness stems purportedly from an unhappy first term, when too many senior advisers were not “loyal” to him. These officials had separate agendas, Mr. Trump’s advocates say, undermining, frustrating, even reversing the president’s decisions and thereby illegitimately usurping his power. Such usurpers were considered denizens of the “deep state,” Republicans in Name Only, conspiratorially linked by a desire to cripple Mr. Trump’s presidency. Not this time, say his consiglieri, notably his eldest son; they want only loyalists.

But what exactly is “loyalty” in the executive branch, and indeed in Congress, where senators have a constitutional advise-and-consent role regarding significant numbers of (but not all) senior officials? To most citizens, loyalty is rightly seen as a virtue. Indeed, a major tenet of first-term veterans of Mr. Trump’s administration is that they did what was customary, which was to swear loyalty to our Constitution, not the man. Former officials like Mark Esper and Mark Milley have persuasively made precisely this point, which the Trump transition team conveniently ignores, fearing correctly that asserting personal over constitutional loyalty would produce nuclear-level blowback.

In fact, Mr. Trump, whose understanding of the Constitution is sketchy, really wants his appointees to display fealty, a medieval concept implying not mere loyalty but submission. Berating and demeaning cabinet officials before their colleagues, as he did to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, among others, and then keeping them in office is disturbing yet typical for Mr. Trump. At Britain’s 2023 coronation of King Charles, Prince William pledged that he would be his father’s “liege man of life and limb.” That’s fealty, publicly affirmed, the kind of personalist link that Mr. Trump expects will elide constitutional obligations.

This is indisputably damaging to a free society, but it is a well-established Trump habit. Neither kings nor presidents, nor their countries, are well served if they are surrounded by sycophants and opportunists. Truly strong presidents are not afraid of advisers with strong views.