Despite decades of public campaigning, steady increases in penalties, and even the advent of ride-sharing apps, some 10,000 Americans are killed each year by drunk drivers. These are preventable deaths, each one an outrage and a tragedy. The Washington Post, for its part, has therefore traditionally taken a hard line on drunk driving, bemoaning in 2015, for example, Maryland’s “coddling” of drunk drivers, and in 2016, that state’s “enabling” of them.

And then along came Donald Trump.