The president's escalating conflict with federal courts is even more aggressive than what happened in countries like Hungary and Turkey, experts say. Over the weekend, the Trump administration ignored a federal judge's order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men, then later tried to retroactively justify its actions with arguments so distant from settled law and ordinary practice that legal experts have said they border on frivolous. "The zeal with which these guys are engaging in increasingly open, authoritarian behavior is unlike almost anything I've seen. Erdogan, Chavez, Orban – they hid it," Mr. Levitsky said.
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