What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened a federal judge over his "military top-secret ballroom."

Today, Trump once again took to social media to rant about the legal obstacles he's facing in building what he has called a "military top-secret ballroom." Initially, Trump's fixation on the "ballroom" was simply for the event hosting space he was imagining. He claimed that presidents for "150 years" (so, presumably, back to the Ulysses S. Grant administration) had yearned for "a large event space on the White House complex."

But the idea that Teddy Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower lay awake at night dreaming of ballrooms they couldn't build didn't play well with the public, and neither did the ballroom itself, or Trump's obsession with it. Gradually, he introduced the "military" aspect to his frequent diatribes about it, recasting what he still calls a ballroom as some kind of space-age fortress with a bunker, secure communications facilities, and a hospital. (The White House already has all of these things except a hospital, which might actually be useful for a President whose "annual physicals" now occur every few months and on short notice.)

Today's emotionally overwrought post was about the "DronePort" that he claims the current litigation against the ballroom is holding up. He specifically called out the Republican-appointed judge overseeing the case, Richard Leon, and said that Leon would "be held responsible for the Death and Destruction caused to our Country."

Drawing attention to people by name in this way, in the knowledge that someone among perhaps millions of followers will try to threaten or hurt them, is called stochastic terrorism. Trump has a great deal of experience with it, including against Republicans like Judge Leon.

Trump didn't say what "Death and Destruction" he envisioned happening because the White House lacked an "ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people." But he posted it from the clubhouse of one of his Virginia golf resorts, which lacks any of the White House's defensive fortifications or a drone port.

Why does this matter?

• Laws and judicial proceedings don't cease to exist just because Donald Trump gets upset by them. 

• Trying to incite mobs to violence against political enemies is what authoritarians do.  

• Adding paranoia to a preexisting obsession doesn't make it any better.