Opinion | Trump just can’t learn a lesson. Can the country?

Megan understands the appeal, of course, but she worries that lazy girl employment is a “good short-term decision that has significant long-term costs.” Now, a lazy girl might not be worried about the long-term costs — or the long-term benefits that working hard and in person can generate — when she has unlimited PTO and Barcelona is calling.

But wait until the arrival of, as Megan puts it, “backaches and toddlers,” and these employees might be wishing their #lazygirljob had turned into something a little more remunerative. That is, if they still have the job at all. The labor economy is great now, Megan writes, but “when a recession comes, who will employers let go first?”

If you really care so little for what you’re doing, quitting is always an option. Employees are still voluntarily leaving jobs at historically high rates.

Post Grad fellow Renee Yaseen recently went through her first quit, and she has some reflections and tips for her newly working peers.

After talking with employers and HR managers, Renee concluded that quitting ought to be a conversation rather than a “one-way message,” one that prioritizes respect and honesty. “Know what you’re leaving,” she writes, “and what you’re going to.”

The best bit — one that recent college grads might not be expecting — is the possibility of a counteroffer to get you to stay. Know what you’d be willing to remain for, she writes, and what you wouldn’t.

An even #laziergirljob, you say? Don’t mind if I do.

Trump keeps digging. So do his voters.

It might be asking a lot of former president Donald Trump for him to have learned a lesson. After all, we are not Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

But the lesson of Watergate? Everybody knows that, columnist Ruth Marcus writes: “The coverup is always worse than the crime.”

Alas, “when any reasonably adept criminal would have known to stop digging holes,” Ruth writes, Trump in his Mar-a-Lago documents mess made matters “infinitely worse.”

Her column examines the new indictments in the case, which she calls “jaw-dropping” — for an alleged attempt to destroy video evidence that was “stunning in its brazenness.”

Even if Trump is unteachable, Ruth’s bigger concern is some Americans’ resistance to learning the lesson staring them in the face: that Trump is a dangerous narcissist who must not be elected again.

For George Will, what stings particularly is that he sees a legitimately good Republican alternative in the field, who still has very little chance of success. His latest profile is of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a sensible conservative with bona fides in business, tech and even molecular biology.

George describes his interview with Burgum as “conversing with a Gatling gun,” the governor is so accomplished and ambitious. Amid the rapid fire, he found something refreshing: “Cultural issues are, [Burgum] says, irrelevant to presidential duties.”

A Republican not ready to “unleash a library police force”? That makes him a standout, in all the wrong ways.

Chaser: Greg Sargent reports on a group of Tennessee teachers who have found a creative way to push back against “anti-woke” hysteria.

From Catherine Rampell’s column on the attempt to strip money from the WIC food assistance program, which has been fully funded every year since 1997.

Catherine points out the particularly hypocritical timing of this proposed cut: It’s just a year after Republicans pledged, post-Dobbs, to support the many women now saddled with unwanted pregnancies.

And Catherine, who always finds the fiscal twist, also points out that WIC is one of the worst programs to cut from a financial perspective. “Every dollar spent on WIC,” she writes, “saves much more than a dollar on other government spending programs.”

Chaser: In her latest newsletter, Jen Rubin explains the lay of the land in the next big abortion battle. You can sign up for her newsletter here.

When steeped in U.S. politics nonstop, it’s surprisingly easy to forget the obvious truth that U.S.-China relations are not just shaped by the United States but also by, well, China.

Fareed Zakaria, who has written plenty on American decision-making, spends this week’s column looking into China’s side of the equation. What he sees, he writes, is “opaque but troubling.” The mysterious disappearance of the country’s foreign minister is just the latest peak in Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian, assertive rule.

There are a few tweaks President Biden could yet make to his China policy, Fareed advises, but he’s mostly on the right track. Now, he writes, “the ball is really in China’s court.”

Chaser: Jason Rezaian recently sat down with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. The two discussed how critical it is to keep attempting diplomacy in a world that seems geared against it.

• Aliens are among us, Dana Milbank writes in his weekly dispatch from the Hill — and they want to impeach President Biden.
• Mitch McConnell has the “Potomac Fever,” according to Kathleen Parker’s diagnosis after watching him freeze mid-sentence. It’s time to let go.
• The anti-Ukraine right is failing to convince GOP voters, Marc Thiessen writes.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

When you snooze on the seesaw —

Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Susan D.:

The boy felled the bird, though he

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!