“This time is different.” With Donald Trump’s second term off to a roaring, snorting start—a furious dust cloud of ICE raids and ICE-raid photo ops, tariffs announced and then paused, a funding freeze dramatically imposed and then rapidly rescinded—these words have become something of a media mantra. This time, after all, Trump ran not merely as an insurgent entertainer—an amorphous vessel for free-floating anomie—but as the scarred veteran of a decade-long ideological war, prosecuted and convicted by his enemies, his purposes hardened and sharpened by a thirst for political payback. This time, Trump won the national popular…