The pragmatic moderate who plays a nascent dictator on TV

I honestly wonder what the editors of the editorial page of our Newspaper of Record are thinking, when they publish a 2,000-word brief for a second Trump presidency, based on the claim that Trump is a pragmatic moderate like Richard Nixon (!), who just uses some startling rhetoric sometimes.

The whole thing is, to quote Judge Woolsey, somewhat emetic, so you’ve been warned. Here’s a typical passage:

It is also worth considering that many voters may not consider Mr. Trump’s excesses to be as unusual as his opponents do. They may regard the events of Jan. 6, for example, as comparable to the violence that occurred after the death of George Floyd (when protests outside the White House resulted in the injury of more than 60 Secret Service agents and more than 50 members of the U.S. Park Police). They may regard Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results as not altogether unlike Mrs. Clinton’s statement that she “would not” rule out questioning the legitimacy of the 2016 election over claims of Russian collusion. Whether or not such equivalences are warranted, they are available to voters who remain angry that Mr. Trump’s opponents, including elected officials, challenged the legitimacy of his presidency even before he first took office — and seem no less committed to the project today.

The idea that Mr. Trump poses an existential threat to democracy is now closely intertwined with taking certain extraordinary legal steps against him. Though the legal merits of the four criminal cases brought against Mr. Trump vary, their political effect, given their timing and Mr. Trump’s continued popularity, is the same: They imply that defending democracy requires burdening, shutting up or even jailing one of the two highest-polling candidates. This is also true of lawsuits filed in several states arguing that Mr. Trump is ineligible to hold office.

If support for Mr. Trump really did indicate an incipient radicalism in the American electorate, such legal actions would be more understandable. Their political costs, however grave, would be easier to justify. But even those who think that some of the indictments of Mr. Trump are well grounded might conclude that the costs of prosecution, given the possible appearance of a partisan motive, are too high — that they pose the sort of threat to democratic norms that they purport to guard against.

Whether or not my bizarrely inaccurate analogies make the slightest sense, they are “available to voters,” you see, so, um . . . forget it Jake.

Meanwhile:

Former President Donald Trump keeps gaining ground in the Republican presidential nomination contest, as fewer than one third of GOP primary voters now back all his rivals combined, according to the latest Fox News survey.

Trump’s support stands at 69% in the primary race. That’s up 7 points since November and fully 26 points since February.

Ron DeSantis receives 12% support (down 1 point since November), Nikki Haley gets 9% (-1), Vivek Ramaswamy 5% (-2), Chris Christie 2% (-1), and Asa Hutchinson 1% (steady).  

It’s five o’clock somewhere. Let’s see . . . ah yes in Moscow. Prost!