It was a curious line, not just for what it said, but also because of who was saying it. In an interview last month with the New York Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat, J.D. Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio who is vying to be Donald Trump’s running mate, declared: “The thing that I kept thinking about liberalism in 2019 and 2020 is that these guys have all read Carl Schmitt — there’s no law, there’s just power. And the goal here is to get back in power.”

Vance was referring to the political theorist and Nazi jurist who provided much of the intellectual ballast for the Third Reich. Schmitt despised liberalism. Yet according to Vance, liberals are in thrall to this adamantly illiberal thinker, a man who extolled the dictatorial use of executive power to defeat one’s enemies.

That, at least, is what I think Vance was saying. His examples of Schmittian liberalism involved not jackboot autocracy but political correctness — an “absolutely tyrannical” force that meant “there was nothing you were allowed to say.”

In the rest of the interview, Vance seemed to have few qualms about wielding power to defeat enemies, as long as conservatives were the ones doing it. Asked about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Vance defended Trump (who, of course, talks incessantly about crushing his enemies). “I think that challenging elections and questioning the legitimacy of elections is actually part of the democratic process,” Vance said. “When they say, ‘He’s threatening the foundation of American society,’ I can’t help but roll my eyes.”

Vance’s comment about Schmitt, law and power acquired new resonance on July 1, when two events took place that happened to be connected with Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Each captured an element of politics that Schmitt would have recognized — and endorsed.

In Danbury, Conn., the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon entered a low-security prison to serve a four-month sentence, having defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating Jan. 6. Standing before a noisy gathering of supporters, the ever-confrontational Bannon railed against the “corrupt, criminal D.O.J.,” called himself a “martyr” and told a priest to “pray for our enemies” because “they’re the ones who are going to need the prayers.” He kept the fury turned up for nearly half an hour, signing off with “Victory or death!” It was a show of contemptuous, uncompromising fanaticism — and a faithful embodiment of Trump’s own scorched-earth, us-versus-them instincts.