◼ The obvious solution for Democrats: Replace Biden without telling him.

◼ White House visits by neurologists, hitherto private, now admitted without being explained; the crooked, ne’er-do-well son taking part in staff meetings and press conferences; the New York Times, liberalism’s Old Farmer’s Almanac, calling on its disgraced commander (twice!) to do the gentlemanly thing—like the toothless locals or ancient rituals that are the signs in horror films of impending disaster, both the pleas of sometime admirers and the clumsiness of his own and his protectors’ actions seem to impel President Biden to leave the race. But here’s the thing: He has the nomination locked up. He is the incumbent in an office he has spent decades pursuing and that his inner circle has every reason, from continued access to the prospect of pardons, to want him to keep. Moderate congressmen fearful of losing their seats in a GOP wipeout will be ignored. What leverage did they ever have in this administration? Democrats may have pretended that Biden’s debility was a Republican invention a little too long for their own good.

◼ Republicans meanwhile should look to their own paladin. Donald Trump revels in seeding the body politic with insane and destructive ideas that are beneath the dignity of the office he seeks and, for that matter, beneath any American dedicated to constitutional norms and principles. The best window into Trump’s ignorant and destructive id is often his Truth Social account. While normal Americans were making plans for Independence Day, an obsessive on Truth Social was declaring, “Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason. Retruth if you want televised military tribunals.” “Retruth,” in the idiom of Truth Social, means “to repost.” Trump of course retruthed. The former president also took time to retruth a post calling for Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Cheney, and a dozen prominent Democrats to be jailed because they saw fit to tell the American people the truth that the 2020 “elections were fair.” Republicans would be wise to remember that character is destiny and that Trump has never had any.

◼ The last time there was a Republican platform, in 2016, its discussion of abortion policy was a model of succinct good sense. It needed updating, given events since then: the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the passage in multiple states of protections for unborn children, and the political backlash to both. Team Trump has come up with new language that attempts to sound conciliatory without containing concessions intolerable to pro-lifers. That language, though, includes logical and factual errors. It claims, for example, that states’ authority to restrict abortion comes from the 14th Amendment. Serious students of the topic have conflicting views on what the amendment means for abortion, but none of them think that. The platform no longer endorses federal legislation on abortion but does not rule it out, either—which raises the question of what the drafters think they have accomplished politically. Democrats will continue to say that Republicans will ban all abortions nationwide if they can, and nothing in the platform contradicts them. The revisions advertise the party’s (and Trump’s) obvious fear of the issue while doing nothing to address that fear. We understand that tactical retreats are sometimes necessary in politics, but disorderly ones rarely are.

◼ Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6–3 majority in Trump v. United States, held that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” within their “core constitutional powers,” such as decisions about prosecutions, military force, and pardons. While the Constitution says nothing about presidential immunity, the Court recognized that criminalizing the discretionary powers vested by Article II in the president is tantamount to Congress’s unconstitutionally restricting those powers. The majority was adamant that courts must “not inquire into the President’s motives” in exercising them. While the decision does not immunize presidents from prosecution for private misconduct even if it may tangentially relate to a president’s status, it extends at least “presumptive” immunity to other official acts. And it draws the “official acts” line so broadly that it may include even presidential tweets. Discerning that line will likely require protracted proceedings that will make trying Trump before the election infeasible. It may even complicate Trump’s New York conviction, because the Court restricted the use of presidential official acts as evidence. The Court soundly rejected, however, Trump’s theory that he was immune from prosecution because he was acquitted by the Senate in his second impeachment trial. Elections, impeachment, court decisions, and the power of the purse remain available tools to restrain presidential abuses. It marks a failure of our system that it was necessary for the Court even to address this question.