Last year, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman got a great deal of grief for reporting that Trump earnestly believes that he can — and possibly will — be reinstated as president before the 2024 election has been held. But Haberman was correct: Trump does believe this. And that he believes it should disqualify him from holding office. It should disqualify him because it represents a willful rejection of the American system of government, which does not allow for arbitrarily reinstating former presidents or holding do-over elections. It should disqualify him because it represents yet another attempt to stage a coup against the rightful winner of the 2020 election. And it should disqualify him because it exhibits a raw contempt for the public, which does not deserve to be told such brazen lies. Americans may — no, Americans should — disagree about anything they wish to disagree about. But, at the very least, they ought to agree unanimously to reject (or remove) political candidates who promise ahead of time that they intend to violate the rules by which they are legally bound. Eighteen months have now passed since Joe Biden was inaugurated, and Donald Trump is still searching for illegitimate ways to undo his loss. That, in and of itself, is proof of his unfitness for office.

Why does Donald Trump say such things? There are two possibilities. The first is that Donald Trump earnestly believes that he won the 2020 presidential election, and that, at some point soon, he is going to be parachuted back into the White House. The second is that Donald Trump cares so little about the American system of government that he is willing to spend his days inventing ever-more-outlandish theories as to how he might crowbar himself into the Oval Office. Only Donald Trump can know which of these possibilities is true, but both are proof that he’s a lunatic, and that the Republican primary electorate should reject him in favor of someone who is able — or willing — to acquiesce to our most basic constitutional rules.