As one might expect, various Republican politicians entertain ambitions to take over Donald Trump’s voter base. They are re-using one of Trump’s more successful game plans, namely, keep yourself in the public eye and do whatever it takes, however degrading, to stay there. Trump kept himself in the media spotlight for four plus years by continually saying something stupid or vicious and by behaving in novel brutish and criminal ways.

Now the leading competitors for the throne they hope Trump will soon abandon are Ted Cruz, the lounge-lizard of Cancun, and Josh Hawley, whose elite heart bleeds for the common man. But at this time the figure who seems most regularly to be copying Trump’s plan is Trump’s sycophantissimus, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Ron cannot open his mouth without making a fool of himself and he seizes every opportunity to open it. He is afraid that he cannot be re-elected, and so he keeps forcing himself into public consciousness by acting the fool. This ongoing campaign of outspoken foolishness plays well with the Trumpian base, as it must with Trump himself. But it is also attractive to the news media that report Johnson’s every embarrassing utterance, because, I suppose, he creates a kind of scandal with statements that are outrageous, borderline screwy, and offensive to good sense. A senator’s saying or doing something stupid is hardly surprising, but really transcendent stupidity is, I suppose, newsworthy.

But I keep asking why the media cannot refuse to play along with “no such thing as bad publicity” campaigns of Trump and his epigonids? How can they refuse? Good editing is not the same as censorship, and if right-wingers complain that they are edited out of the news coverage, they should be told that responsible reporting is not a venue for nutty ideas, lies, and political melodrama.