It's this kind of stuff - today's edition

This message goes out to a particular kind of conservative friend of mine, the one who still mainly gets his or her conservative insight from reputable sources and still generally couches his or her arguments in terms that demonstrate a rootedness in conservatism's synthesis of the best that's been thought about ordered liberty and what makes life worth living, yet who still takes any opportunity to cheer Trump personally, as if he has proven himself a worthy standard-bearer for our body of principles.

The message is this: He is not that standard-bearer and is never going to be.

Look, we are in complete agreement that the Squad is a poisonous force in American life and that that must be pointed out vigorously and often.

But this utterance from the Very Stable Genius gets into a different kind of territory altogether:

They “can’t get away with” speaking badly about the United States, Trump told reporters outside the White House. “I can tell you this, you can’t talk that way about our country, not when I’m the president.”

This obviously begs an immediate question: Oh, yeah, and what are you going to do about it?, which calls his bluff, as he's not Constitutionally empowered to do a stinking thing about it.

Then there is the fodder it supplies to Squad types, who can now crow, "You see how close we are getting to the stifling of First Amendment rights in this country?"

I was heartened to hear that some Christians are calling Trump out for his gratuitous use of the term "g-ddamn" at his South Carolina. But how about his big-shot evangelical sycophants? Are Robert Jeffress and Jerry Falwell, Jr. going to weigh in?