GOP primary voters can benefit from reading the latest Trump indictment and asking what it means for a second Trump term. The facts alleged show that Mr. Trump has again played into the hands of his enemies. His actions were reckless, arrogant and remarkably self-destructive. This is the same Donald Trump they will get if they nominate him for a third time.

Mr. Trump believes he had the right to keep the documents under the Presidential Records Act, and we think he has a stronger case than the press claims. But once he received a subpoena for those documents, Mr. Trump should have known he was at legal peril if he concealed them or lied about having them. …

If Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee, he is unlikely to defeat Joe Biden. But if he did win, the document fiasco is what a second term would be like. He wouldn’t be able to deliver the conservative policy victories that Republicans want because he can’t control himself. He’d be preoccupied with grievance and what he calls “retribution.” The best people won’t work for him because they see how he mistreated so many loyalists in the first term.