Opinion | Marc Thiessen should not be surprised by Trump’s behavior

Mr. Thiessen has defended Mr. Trump repeatedly. Reality, Mr. Thiessen, might be difficult, but most of us have to accept it.

Stephanie Peat, Falls Church

Marc A. Thiessen’s acknowledgment of former president Donald Trump’s “mistakes” was a welcome admission of Mr. Trump’s — and the Republican Party’s — catastrophic decision to contest the legitimacy of the 2020 election. And yet, in his unwillingness or inability to recognize that these mistakes were not strategic but moral, Mr. Thiessen missed an opportunity for redemption.

Character is fate. Human beings have probably always known this subliminally, even before it was enunciated explicitly by Heraclitus more than 2,000 years ago. Mr. Trump’s relentless and increasingly unwarranted (and probably illegal) efforts to contest the election are not the result of miscalculations. They are the result of bad character. The Republican Party, which, sadly, no longer exists except in name, used to understand this.

When the bad character of an individual becomes the rallying cry of a political movement, bad things happen. This is not a mistake. It is the natural consequence of immoral choices.

Redemption is still possible in the Republican Party, but not without honest reflection and true penitence.

Marc A. Thiessen made the case that if former president Donald Trump had acted like a regular politician — you know, not taken classified materials from the White House, etc. — he would win the presidency in 2024, “possibly in a landslide.” That is like saying if a snake were a bird, it could fly.

Mr. Trump was never about being a public servant.