Phil writes:
The simple reason why Trump has been so formidable is that he keeps getting indicted.
This is crazy. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that Phil is incorrect in his assessment here. I’m saying that what he’s relating is crazy. That sentence — “the simple reason why Trump has been so formidable is that he keeps getting indicted” — is crazy. It’s ridiculous. It reads like a joke. It should be a joke. In any other context, it would be a joke. If you said this to an electorate about anyone else — “the reason that candidate is doing so well in the primary is that he’s been repeatedly indicted” — they’d look at you as if you were on LSD. We’ve been doing this for so long with Donald Trump that it can be easy just to nod along, but we ought not to forget: This is crazy.