“Donald Trump used his social-media platform Friday to mock Nikki Haley’s birth name,” a news article begins. What could be less surprising? The article, from the Associated Press, goes on to say the following:

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump repeatedly referred to Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, as “Nimbra.” Haley, the former South Carolina governor, was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has always gone by her middle name, “Nikki.” She took the surname “Haley” upon her marriage in 1996.

Speaking of mockery, did you hear Trump mock President Biden and his stuttering? Very entertaining, for some:

Most parents, I wager, would not let their children engage in such behavior. Do they want it in a president? A leader? You can criticize Biden six ways to Sunday — but I don’t know why you have to include mockery of a stutter.

Trump’s contempt for the late John McCain is well-known. There could hardly be two people more different — in experience, character, worldview, etc. When Trump visited Japan in May 2019, he had to have the USS John S. McCain out of sight.

The late senator could not raise his arms. If you know anything about his ordeal in Vietnam, you know why. Anyway, here’s our former president, and possible (probable?) future president:

Trump has a particular view of the rule of law. He expresses some of it here:

Think of it: “EVEN EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’ MUST FALL UNDER TOTAL IMMUNITY.” Jonah Goldberg had a fitting reaction:

I cannot be more emphatic: This is wildly, profoundly, fundamentally un-American, unconstitutional, and — therefore — unconservative. Everything about our constitutional order screams “Wrong!” at the idea that a president has — or should have — absolute, monarchical power, unaccountable to the rule of law.

Here is another taste of Trump, speaking on Friday night:

They are not “very fine people.” They are murderous dictators. They are also enemies of the United States.

Some Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers have told me that Trump was being sardonic. I might believe that — except for the years and years of heaping praise on dictators, and on Putin, Xi, and Kim in particular. I have chapter and verse — or many chapters and verses — in a piece from October 2020: “Trump and Dictators.” If someone wants to refute me, I would be all ears.

There is a phrase Trump uses: “J6 hostages.” This refers to those who have been found guilty of crimes committed on January 6, 2021, and sentenced for them.

The term “J6” alone is cutesy. It makes the riot — or whatever you’d like to call it — sound almost cool. And “hostages”? I think of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent in Russia, whom Putin nabbed and imprisoned. I thought, also, that David Frum had an apt response:

People follow their leaders. So when Trump calls the January 6 prisoners “hostages,” other Republicans follow suit — Republicans such as Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 GOP-er in the House:

Speaking of the House, here is Trump blaming Nikki Haley for a failure of security at the Capitol on January 6:

Trump is obviously the hero of the populist Right: of CPAC, Turning Point, Heritage, etc. But the No. 2 hero, probably, is Viktor Orbán. Trump poured on the praise in New Hampshire: “There’s a great man, a great leader, in Europe, Viktor Orbán. He’s the prime minister of Hungary. He’s a very great leader, very strong man. Some people don’t like him because he’s too strong. It’s nice to have a strong man running your country.”

Should that be written “strongman”?

At least Trump is now distinguishing Orbán from another favorite of his, the strongman of Turkey, Erdoğan:

For many years, whenever I and others have made criticisms of Trump — or merely quoted him or pointed out his behavior — his supporters and defenders have retorted, “Orange Man Bad!” That’s supposed to shut you up. The magic phrase “Orange Man Bad!” Well, what if he is, in important respects?

Here is the front page of the New York Post earlier this month:

Honestly, the Republican media — and Republicans in general — are going to have to do better than this. If you can defend Trump, go ahead. But “Orange Man Bad!” won’t cut it.

Some leading Republicans made sure to get in their endorsements of Trump before the Iowa caucuses. It was like a deadline. Like a litmus test: Did you declare for me before any vote was cast? Senator Lee did it, Senator Rubio did it.

The Trump movement likes to associate itself with manliness. What is striking, however, is how many politicians and others have emasculated themselves, to conform to that movement.

Even before any Iowan had his say, Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers were taunting us with “Binary choice! Binary choice!” But it wasn’t. It isn’t. If Republicans want to nominate someone else for president — rather than Donald Trump for the third time — they can. It’s entirely voluntary.

As some tell it, Trump just happens, like the weather. Nothing you can do about it. Or he’s a devious Democratic plot. He is not. Republicans have agency, they have volition. Trump is a choice. As some of us see it, the wrong choice — but a choice nonetheless.

“Here, the people rule,” goes an old line in our country. It’s true. Another old line goes, “A nation is a daily plebiscite” (Ernest Renan, the 19th-century French historian). Every day, we decide who we are, in the choices we make. In the spirit we express. In the values we uphold, or discard.

You can say that a party or a movement, too, is a daily plebiscite. Who are we?

The 2024 Republican nomination is all but sewn up. Very soon, the wagons will circle tight, and Trump, if he is not celebrated, will be perfumed, excused, rationalized — all of it. But we can do so much better. We have in the past and should again.