By March 2016, Donald Trump was the prohibitive frontrunner for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. His intraparty rivals, however, weren’t quite ready to give up, however, and so the candidates continued to participate in debates.

The 11th such debate was largely unremarkable, except for one thing: This was the GOP event in which Trump bragged about the size of his genitals.

I remember finding this bewildering at the time. Indeed, the rhetoric generated a series of questions that lingered. Is this what modern American politics had come to? In most of the world’s leading democracies, wouldn’t this be disqualifying for someone seeking a national leadership position? How will the United States, long seen as the world’s preeminent superpower, continue to claim credibility as a serious nation worthy of international respect?

Nearly a decade later, similar questions returned to the fore after seeing Trump’s reaction to successful “No Kings” protests nationwide. NBC News reported:

President Donald Trump on Saturday posted an AI-generated video depicting him in a fighter jet dropping what appears to be feces on U.S. protesters. … The video shows Trump dropping the apparent fecal matter on someone who looks like left-wing influencer Harry Sisson and other protesters gathered in an area that seems to be Times Square in New York City.

The headline on the latest column from USA Today’s Rex Huppke read, “Trump posts AI video of him dumping poop on us. I can’t believe I wrote that.”

The incredulity was understandable. The sitting American president thought it’d be a good idea to post a video of himself — wearing a crown, as if he were a monarch — flying a fighter jet and dropping a plane-load of excrement, not on foreign adversaries, but on his ostensible constituents on American soil.

It’s difficult to imagine any other advanced nation in which a president or prime minister would dare take such a ridiculous or disgusting step.

Vice President JD Vance, predictably, shrugged this off, and soon after, House Speaker Mike Johnson did his best once again to carry water for Trump.

“The president uses social media to make the point. You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media for that,” the Louisiana congressman said at a Capitol Hill press conference. “He is using satire to make a point.”

First, it’s worth emphasizing that if the House speaker doesn’t understand what the word “satire” means, he probably shouldn’t use it in a sentence.

Second, Johnson seemed quite adamant that Trump was making “a point” with the video, but the GOP leader never quite got around to explaining what, exactly, that point was.

Other recent Republican leaders learned quickly to say, “I didn’t see the tweet,” even when they obviously had. Perhaps Johnson would embarrass himself less if he took a page from his predecessors’ script.

“Trump sharing that obscene video was totally disgusting. Any regular person could say as much,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said via Bluesky, “It’s genuinely pathetic to see elected leaders like Speaker Johnson twisting themselves into pretzels to put on a show for the President like this.”