The Week: Trump’s Granite Wall

• Well, at least Trump has proven that he’s not just a sore loser.

• Ron DeSantis finished second in the Iowa caucuses, pulled out, and endorsed the victor, Donald Trump. Trump was gracious. Said everyone, Gracious Trump! (Is this something new?) Nikki Haley finished second in the New Hampshire primary and vowed to keep fighting. Was Trump’s victory speech gracious? Arguably, for him it was—he didn’t call Haley “Nimbra” or “Birdbrain” (though he summoned the latter in a post-primary social-media post). He did call her an “impostor” (for claiming to have beaten the expectations game) and suggested that if she won in November she would be investigated for unnamed scandals, which he declines for the present to reveal. For good measure he said that Governor Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley, was high on drugs. Politics is a contact sport; in ongoing contests, even winners take shots at rivals. But this winner accepts only converts, smiling behind him on the podium like bobblehead dolls. Anything less he consigns to perdition or, since defeat is unacceptable, nonexistence (hence Biden did not beat him in 2020). Voters will get to see a lot more of this until November.

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Donald Trump

• Well, at least Trump has proven that he’s not just a sore loser.

• Ron DeSantis finished second in the Iowa caucuses, pulled out, and endorsed the victor, Donald Trump. Trump was gracious. Said everyone, Gracious Trump! (Is this something new?) Nikki Haley finished second in the New Hampshire primary and vowed to keep fighting. Was Trump’s victory speech gracious? Arguably, for him it was—he didn’t call Haley “Nimbra” or “Birdbrain” (though he summoned the latter in a post-primary social-media post). He did call her an “impostor” (for claiming to have beaten the expectations game) and suggested that if she won in November she would be investigated for unnamed scandals, which he declines for the present to reveal. For good measure he said that Governor Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley, was high on drugs. Politics is a contact sport; in ongoing contests, even winners take shots at rivals. But this winner accepts only converts, smiling behind him on the podium like bobblehead dolls. Anything less he consigns to perdition or, since defeat is unacceptable, nonexistence (hence Biden did not beat him in 2020). Voters will get to see a lot more of this until November.