Here’s a sad little secret about the current political moment: almost no one who talks about the “rule of law” actually cares about it. As with so many things in today’s political discourse, Democrats use the “rule of law” — like “authoritarianism” and “democracy” — as little more than a partisan talking point for the narrow purpose of undermining Donald Trump and his presidential campaign.

What else explains the across-the-board silence to President Joe Biden’s flagrant, monthslong violation of US laws throughout Israel’s war on Gaza?

Yesterday ProPublica reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has simply been ignoring his own officials’ months-old recommendations to cut off military aid to Israeli military and police units accused of torture and other abuses, as is required by US law. These particular abuses — which include the torture and rape of a teenager and extrajudicial killings — aren’t even related to the never-ending litany of atrocities the world has watched play out every day over the course of the campaign in Gaza: they purely concern incidents that happened before the start of the war, mostly in the West Bank, which is not controlled by Hamas.