Welcome to Donald Trump’s banana republic. “We’re going to have protests, demonstrations,” says Trump surrogate and confidante Roger Stone. “We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal. If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them.”

This is the Trump-world version of a counterpunch. Lose in a delegate-selection process you’ve known about for a year but didn’t prepare for. Respond with brutish threats of mayhem and personal harm.

Some presidential candidates tease out the latent idealism of their fellow citizens. Trump promises to pay the legal bills of followers who assault protesters. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Those who believe that politics is a low and dirty business are often the ones who make it so. Trump has a genuine contempt for the profession he seeks to join, and he is doing his best to make it contemptible. He is featuring the kind of bullying vindictiveness that Richard Nixon took great pains to conceal. We don’t need to subpoena the tapes; we have the tweets. Trump will clearly do anything to become president.