How Donald Trump Differs from a Generic Republican

While Donald Trump resembles ordinary Republicans in some respects, in other respects he really is different. 

Consider:

Donald Trump believes that there was serious criminality in the Obama Administration, despite the lack of any supporting evidence.  Doubtless many ordinary Republicans agree.*

Donald Trump believes that lack of evidence is the result of Attorney General Eric Holder successfully covering up Obama's crimes.  Again, many Republicans appear to agree.

The difference is that ordinary Republicans see Holder's alleged stone walling as an outrage.  Trump sees it as exactly what an Attorney General is supposed to do. 

Ordinary Republicans' firm commitment to alternative facts is troubling.  But Donald Trump's viewpoint is even worse.  It shows that he has absolutely no concept of the rule of law and sees the Attorney General and the Justice Department, not at law enforcement, but as the President's private fixers.**

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*I realize many Republicans will say there is plenty of evidence of criminality by the Obama Administration.  So far as I can tell, it consists of three main things.  First, allegations that the Obama IRS targeted conservative organizations for tax audits.  That has since been proven false.  The IRS targeted any organization with a political sounding name, liberal or conservative, to see if its claim for non-profit status was legitimate.  Though a bit heavy-handed, it was not discriminatory.  Second, the Obama Administration was blamed for Operation Fast and Furious. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), in an attempt to crack down on gun smuggling to Mexican drug cartels, knowingly allowed illegal sales to take place in hopes of tracing them.  A Drug Enforcement Agent was killed by one such gun.  This appears to have been a local operation, not involving any political appointees, and beginning before the Obama Administration. I was also rather unclear what the Republicans were really angry about, that that ATF allowed illegal gun smuggling to occur, or that it attempted to crack down on anything involving guns at all.  Finally, Republicans are up in arms that the Obama Administration investigated the Trump campaign during the election.
**On the other hand, one might also say that simply means that Trump is more honest and less hypocritical than most Republicans.  He wants the Attorney General to be his private fixer, but he will concede a Democratic President the same privilege.  Republicans are outraged by a Democratic Attorney General's imagined cover-up of a Democratic President's crimes.  Somehow, though, I doubt they will show the same outrage when the shoe is on the other foot.