Beyond Real Time: When you think about it ...

Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York Times

When you think about it, Agent Orange is like a honey badger, relentless, never giving up and ... hate to say it, charismatic, as the money he's made for the networks, while president, was truly epic and ... DeSantimonious is not charismatic in any way, shape or fashion.

A notion devoutly to be unwished ...

Because American politics has been so dominated by an entertainer, the most inevitable thing in the world is a sequel.

Donald Trump is expected to announce his inevitable 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday in Florida. He is not as weak a candidate as many people might expect — or hope — him to be. I believe he is most likely to be the 2024 Republican nominee for president, and since we have only two major political parties, he could win in the general election — and that would be bad for the country.

Unless and until somebody else comes into the arena and proves otherwise, and despite disappointing Republican midterm election results that many people blamed Mr. Trump for, he remains the leader of the Republican Party. His style of personalized politics is incompatible with coalitional politics of any kind, and his agenda for personal rule in a second term is shaping up to be a nightmare.

He sets out in this pole position because the G.O.P. is a mess. What the midterms exposed again is that the party as it is currently configured doesn’t make any political sense and is a losing electoral proposition.

But that is not necessarily a problem for Mr. Trump. In fact, a Republican Party that is in disarray and divided by bitter recriminations and factional rivalries is the perfect environment for him. After all, bitterness and recriminations are his main instruments, and it is when Republicans are at their lowest political ebb — when they are feeling the most vulnerable, victimized and marginalized — that Mr. Trump is at his political best.

When you think about it ...