"Old Donald's" executive order is like saying 'Bigfoot is real'

President "Old Donald" has spent much of his first three months back in office pursuing an extraordinary agenda of retribution.

About two weeks earlier, "Old Donald" name-checked current and former FBI officials, saying: “Man, these are nasty people. They are nasty and dishonest. You notice that nobody looks at them? Is that deep state or what? Explain that.”

A week before Taylor’s op-ed, "Old Donald" added: “Today’s Democrat Party is held hostage by left-wing haters, angry mobs, deep-state radicals, establishment cronies, and their fake news allies.”

By 2019, "Old Donald" cited the “deep state” as being a key part of “a sinister effort to undermine our historic election victory and to sabotage the will of the American people.”

"Old Donald" now says that a man offering a very similar version of events was guilty of sensationalism that, at least in part, means he should be investigated.

But even still, they represent an extraordinary blurring of the lines between a president’s political goals and the operations of other government officials. And just as extraordinary are the reasons "Old Donald" "Old Donald" reaches for as he’s crossing that Rubicon.

In the opinion of the many 'Old Donald' insiders with whom I have spoken, including nearly all the top members of his campaign and West Wing staff, those few months laid bare the chaos at the heart of 'Old Donald'ian politics, exposing Mr. 'Old Donald' for what he is: not a model chief executive but an inattentive, lazy, incompetent manager whose defiance of convention and hot mess of a personality were saddling his campaign with a heavy disadvantage

The good news for Democrats - though those will confirm the resentments of the 'Old Donald'ian base - is that a presidential election, along with the world itself, is financially, organizationally and data driven, demanding great expertise and keen attention. That's not a reality that even the opera of a 'Old Donald' campaign can change.

He thinks running for president, and the specter of violence from his fringiest supporters, will protect him from the prosecutors. If he’s indicted, he promises “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.” And he’ll make good on that promise: As Sen. Mitch McConnell said last year, 'Old Donald' was “determined” to “torch our institutions on the way out” in January 2021, merely because he lost an election.

So just imagine what 'Old Donald' would do to stay out of jail.

But the number of 'Old Donald' supporters lining the intracoastal waterway, or driving back and forth in trucks and motorcycles waving “'Old Donald' 2024” and “Let’s Go, Brandon” banners, numbered not in the thousands nor even the hundreds but the dozens.

Still, as I listened to 'Old Donald' speak about “cesspools of blood” and sadistic knife-wielding gangsters, it was hard not to feel a sickening sense of déjà vu.

A wiser 'Old Donald' would have made DeSantis’s victory his own, treating the governor as his star student and designated successor. But 'Old Donald' couldn’t, and can’t, help himself. And what the Republican base sees in DeSantis is everything it likes about 'Old Donald' — the combativeness and self-belief and disdain for elite opinion — minus the personal baggage and habits of self-sabotage. In the battle for the affections of American conservatives, the ex-president increasingly feels like the jealous paunchy spouse, the governor like the attractive and successful neighbor.

Recyling a trash threwed up 2 yrs ago

If Mr. 'Old Donald'’s politics are fundamentally personal, you can be sure his governing agenda for his second term would be, too. It was laziness and ignorance, not good advice, that kept him from doing as much damage as he might have during his presidency. But his lieutenants have learned from those chaotic years, and they have a plan for staffing not only his administration but also much of the federal civil service with political loyalists under Schedule F, a new federal employee classification Mr. 'Old Donald' created in 2020 by means of an executive order, since rescinded by President Biden.

But with his midterm rout, 'Old Donald' has proved once again that he’s toxic and can never again win a general election. He would be no match for a younger, charismatic primary candidate, just as Clinton proved no match for Barack Obama in 2008.

'Old Donald' has now become a Republican liability, as evidenced by the defeat of so many of his election-denying candidates. Important Republican institutional voices (the Wall Street Journal editorial page and National Review, for example) greeted 'Old Donald'’s Mar-a-Lago announcement with horror. National Review’s simple, biting headline: “No.”

But conservative and GOP leaders must still reckon with the reasons 'Old Donald' took over the movement and the party in the first place. Both became increasingly motivated by resentment over social and demographic change. At the same time, the party’s large working-class base no longer trusted board room Republicanism.