George Bush was a simple child elevated to power. He believed in dangerous fantasies and was easily manipulated, but I think he broadly needed to believe he was doing the right thing, so that made implementing the most bald faced evils more complicated. Torture is justified because Jack Bauer needs to save millions of lives from bad men who wanted to kill daddy.

Donald Trump is a mean child elevated to power. He needs no convincing for why the state should do evil. He relishes it. Torture is justified because you’re powerful and you don’t like them.