FROM THE PUBLISHER | Trump has disqualified himself

Rather, I’m referring to Mr. Trump’s recent comment that the Constitution should be suspended. It’s hard to fathom, but that’s exactly what he meant when he said this on Twitter:

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he wrote. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

He’s referring to his false claim that the election was stolen. Do I even need to say that that’s malarkey? His own attorney general, his own vice president, his own judicial appointees, all realize this and have said so and acted accordingly.

Anyway, this recent statement makes it all extraordinarily simple.

The lone job of the president, when you get down to it, is the one for which they take an oath: To support and defend the Constitution. That’s it. Everything else is secondary.

What Mr. Trump is saying, quite clearly, is that he won’t. We know he won’t because he didn’t. We knew he wouldn’t because he said he wouldn’t, when he was asked repeatedly if he would concede the election if he lost. He wouldn’t commit to that. And then he didn’t — he tried in a variety of ways to undo that election.

He fails the first, and really the only, test for holding elective office.

He believes in power, and power only. Nothing matters besides winning.

He does not believe in the rules, not even the rules set out by the founders of the country, and in the rules as they have been written in law over 200 years of our country’s existence.

I don’t know if the prosecutors will pursue criminal charges against him. That is a daunting prospect, given that he was president and is once again a presidential candidate. I hope prosecutors and judges act in a way that accords with the law. That is the basis of our system — equal justice under the law, no matter who you are.

But in the end, that is not even the most important thing. The most important thing is that we — the voters and citizens of the country — recognize him for what he is: A would-be dictator, who doesn’t believe in our system, who fails the test that matters. Because of that, he simply cannot be elected to any public office, not now, not ever.