Donald Trump has declared war on the Federal Reserve’s independence.

On Monday, the president ordered the removal of Lisa Cook from the central bank’s Board of Governors. Cook, an economist appointed by Joe Biden, holds one of the 12 votes that determine whether the Fed will raise or lower interest rates.

Trump wants a central bank that will do his bidding. But he cannot legally replace Federal Reserve governors before their terms are up, unless they commit acts of neglect or malfeasance. So, his administration launched an investigation into Cook with the aim of generating a pretext for her ouster. They settled on the allegation that Cook once falsified records when applying for a mortgage. She contests the legality of her dismissal and refuses to forfeit her position.

To many liberals, Trump’s attempted removal of Cook is of a piece with his broader assault on America’s democratic institutions: Trump wants every federal agency to put his personal interests above their public responsibilities. His Justice Department does not seek to impartially enforce the law, but to reward Trump’s allies and harass his enemies. His Federal Trade Commission doesn’t enforce antitrust law to ensure competition but to coerce corporate genuflection to the White House. With his assault on Fed independence, Trump is seeking to corrupt yet another institution, so as to further consolidate his authoritarian regime.

Thus, the Brookings Institution’s David Wessel declared that Trump’s bid “to control the Fed” is “one more way in which he is undermining the foundations of our democracy.” In his newsletter, the economist Paul Krugman offers a similar view.

But some progressives disagree. To them, Trump’s attack on the Fed is categorically different from his perversion of........

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