Leading by example

Trump at his New Hampshire rally Thursday night was either worse than ever or every bit as bad as he’s always been.

His speech was at times a greatest hits album of favorite lines, replaying the 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton and bashing the news media, Democrats and America’s allies in Europe. Typically rambling, veering on and off script seemingly at random over an hour and a half, he repeated points he had already made earlier in the evening as if he did not remember already making them.

So pretty typical then.

His talk was also marked by repeated inconsistencies. The same president who last year said trade wars were “easy to win” told his supporters that “I never said China was going to be easy.” The same president who compared America’s intelligence agencies to “Nazi Germany” when he took office complained that Democrats “use the term Nazi” to attack their opponents.

At one point, when a protester disrupted the speech and was escorted out of the arena, Mr. Trump belittled the man’s physical appearance. “That guy has a serious weight problem,” he said. “Go home, start exercising!” Then he shifted back to his prepared text to say that his campaign was about “love.”

Also typical. He berates and abuses people for doing things he does far more often and far more intensely himself. That’s the one way he can be made to serve a purpose of sorts: as a vivid example of what not to be and do and say and think. From here on out “don’t be like trump” can be a useful quick summary of how to be in the world.

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