In the first fortnight of Donald Trump’s presidency, his primary objective has been to concentrate power in the White House and undermine the democratic institutions that serve as checks on his authority. His executive orders fulfill campaign promises, excite his base, and test the limits of his power. So far it appears almost boundless.

Appointing his political adviser Steve Bannon to the National Security Council, shutting out military and intelligence leaders and purging senior officials at the State Department are merely the most overt power grabs. An insidious campaign to create the conditions for authoritarian rule has begun.

Heather Richardson, a professor of American history at Boston College, has argued that the executive order halting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries was intended as a “shock event,” designed to draw out opposition, sow chaos and deepen the partisan divide.

The order was drafted by aides to congressional leaders without the knowledge of their bosses and rushed out without government agencies or lawyers being consulted. Border police received no detailed guidance as to how it should be enforced.

Legal experts ridiculed it as vague and riddled with obvious weaknesses. At Lawfare Blog, Benjamin Wittes quoted an unnamed government immigration lawyer’s assessment of the order as something “an intern came up with over a lunch hour… so poorly written that it’s hard to tell the impact.”

The alternative explanation is that the order was incompetent by design. When officials from the Department of Homeland Security objected to the inclusion of legal permanent residents, popularly known as Green Card holders, they were overruled by Bannon and Stephen Miller, another member of Trump’s inner circle. This guaranteed that there would be chaos at airports.

The White House evidently felt that there was enough popular support for the ban (one poll showed 48% in favour, another 42%) to turn protests against it to its advantage. On conservative media outlets, the demonstrations are either ignored or framed as liberal temper tantrums - bad losers unwilling to give their democratically-elected president a chance.

Trump and his advisers are picking a fight they think they can win, and stirring up unrest that validates the president’s vision of the United States as a violent, fractured society in need of a firm hand. Writing in the Atlantic, David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, concluded: “Civil unrest will not be a problem for the Trump presidency. It will be a resource.”

The loose wording of the order was an invitation to the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge it in court, and for federal judges such as Ann M. Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York to issue a stay, pitting the judiciary against the Department of Homeland Security. Bannon must have been gratified to hear of border agents at John F. Kennedy airport telling immigration lawyers to “ask Mr. Trump” why their clients were being detained.

Right wing media predictably denounced Donnelly, who was appointed by Barack Obama, as biased and out of touch. When Acting Attorney General Sally Yates instructed Department of Justice lawyers not to defend the order, she was promptly fired and smeared as “weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”

This fits a broader pattern. Trump has sought to undermine the legitimacy of the electoral system by alleging widespread voter fraud. His attacks on the New York Times and CNN are a systematic attempt to undermine the press. His cabinet nominees - a committed opponent of state schools at the Department of Education, a fossil fuel industry puppet at the Environmental Protection Agency - appear calculated to undermine government itself.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the president released a bland statement honouring “victims, survivors, heroes” but making no specific reference to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

“After reading it, I thought to myself, ‘The Trump White House is an amateur operation… and whoever wrote the statement and issued it blew it out of ignorance and sloppiness’,” wrote conservative columnist John Podhoretz. He was wrong. Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks said that the omission was intentional, and it later emerged that the White House had suppressed a State Department draft that referred to the Jewish genocide.

The outrages and distraction will not let up. This week we had Trump losing his temper with the Australian Prime Minister, and threatening the University of California at Berkeley after protesters shut down a speech by alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Next week, there will be something equally gaudy and horrifying. “Whether by design or impulse, seems @POTUS is starting fires everywhere by the hour, making it hard for opponents to know where to aim hose,” tweeted Obama’s strategist David Axelrod.

Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Congress quietly went about its business, killing a series of Obama-era regulations. Oil and gas companies will no longer be required to disclose payments to foreign governments. Coal companies will not be punished for dumping waste into streams. People judged mentally unfit to manage their own disability benefits will be able to buy guns.

With the exception of free trade deals, the GOP is getting everything it ever wanted, and is apparently willing to offer unconditional support to a would-be authoritarian in return. Shortly after Trump’s election, House Speaker Paul Ryan was asked on CNN whether he had any concerns about Bannon, a white supremacist who has expressed a desire to smash the system, playing a leading role at the White House. “I don’t know Steve Bannon, so I have no concerns,” he replied. “I trust Donald’s judgment.”