The Iowa caucuses really drove home that Trump is back—and even if his criminal trials go ahead as planned, the law probably isn’t going to be what stops him from becoming president again, Dahlia Lithwick asserts. In fact, all the conversations about the technical ways the legal system could impede his path to the presidency are kind of missing the point.

“For my part, I worry that we have imported far too much force into the idea that the law itself and law alone will curb Trump’s lawlessness,” Lithwick writes, “because no amount of gag orders and conclusions of law and even criminal convictions can stop someone hellbent on using those things as tactics on a tear toward fascism.” She homes in on what actually might stop him, instead.

Plus:

• The Political Gabfest discusses why Trump won Iowa.

• What Next examines how white evangelicals, in particular, learned to stop worrying and love the Donald.

This week saw some alarming news out of the Middle East—and Iran is at the center of it. “More militias and militaries are launching attacks against more countries, for more reasons, than the region has seen in decades—by some measures,........

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