One of the things we've learned during the Obama era is how important norms are, because we've seen how the Republican Party behaved against Obama. So much of what they did was to smash pre-existing norms, which were nothing more than assumptions of how people would behave, which didn't have any real basis in rules or limits.

I worry about the entire structure of American democracy under Trump.

It's possible that Trump will have success by staging jobs theatre, rather than creating jobs. It's the inverse of what Obama did: saving an enormous amount of jobs without having the televised theatre to go along with it.

Barack Obama is extremely smart.

American democracy faces a massive challenge. I don't think it is a certainty that we're headed toward Putin's Russia, as some commentariat does. But people need to mobilize and build up small-d democratic institutions to prepare against that eventuality.

It's possible that the clowning and the buffoonery and the entertainment are a bigger part of what's happening than we've allowed. And that Trump is primarily an entertainer who wants ratings, and an undisciplined speaker, and it will all be less than we think. It's something that we have to consider as a possibility; we don't know.

Barack Obama is pretty similar to the person you see in public, at press conferences. He's a little saltier, a little more sarcastic and cutting.