Rupert Murdoch had the ability to kill Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in the crib. With one phone call, he could have directed Fox News to put a nice, soft pillow over the Trump campaign’s head until it stopped breathing. What was he thinking? Again, 1930s Germany says it all. He didn’t take seriously the chances of a man who wears more make-up than the drag queens of Mike Johnson’s dreams. Perhaps he even was foolish enough to believe that the Republican Party that had invested so much in proclaiming that Character Was King would never accept a man who had given a joint telephone interview to Howard Stern with his then girlfriend Melania Knaus while both were in bed talking about their great sex. I was that fool.

Expecting wisdom and prudence from an Australian tabloid baron whose breakthrough contribution to journalism was introducing semi-nude young women on page three of The Daily Sun is a quaint notion, like Donald Trump believing Vladimir Putin was sincere. Promoting the presidential hopes of that fat guy from Queens must have been amusing to Rupert Murdoch, a harmless and profitable pursuit, an exotic animal dealer smuggling in boa constrictors. Until you wake up one night and your profit center has wrapped itself around your throat.

Today, Rupert Murdoch faces the $10 billion Trump lawsuit on top of the $2.7 billion Smartmatic suit. There is much glee in the anti-Trump air that Murdoch has finally had enough and is moving to control “the fiend,” as Mary Shelly called Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. I’m eager to buy a ticket on that joyful ride.

But I must wonder if we are falling into the same pit of 2016 assumptions about this America we love. It’s insane to think that Donald Trump would send his masked men of ICE to arrest and deport an immigrant named Rupert Murdoch. Right? To live in that country would require believing that some day the United States government would fund a paramilitary force of masked men with a budget larger than the total military budget of all but two countries. That’s crazy, no?

In Russia, a Rupert Murdoch making a move against the leader would know to stay away from any open windows. How about in today’s America? Donald Trump has always benefited from the assumption that at some point he would be limited by the established rules of society and modulate his behavior.

Well, how’s that going?