Sometimes politics resembles one of the weirder branches of modern physics or a fantasy version of biology. Time may seem to run backwards; solid things turn out to be insubstantial; black holes swallow up the light; the dead may walk the Earth, ghouls crawl out of cleft rocks, velociraptors not only reappear but learn to speak and, alarmingly, open doors. That is how American politics feels at the moment. By and large, however, Newtonian physics and traditional biology still apply, and that is worth remembering as we watch the Trump administration's circus of transgression, vindictiveness, and sometimes mere folly. Like most administrations, including those of considerably more sedate chief executives, that of the 47th president has decided to way overinterpret its mandate. The brute facts remain: Donald Trump received a plurality of votes (albeit a decisive majority in the Electoral College); the Republican Party is holding on to the House of Representatives by a hair and has a...
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