WASHINGTON, D.C. — Some things are true even if Newt Gingrich says they are. In August, the former Speaker—a man for whom the phrase “no whit abashed” is a business model—threw shade on Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign. “President Trump got 68.63% in West Virginia,” he tweeted in his usual, delicate style, “4.8% in Washington DC [sic]. Guess where Mueller has a grand jury? Guess how biased it will be?”

More than a few respectable voices were raised at the time about a former Speaker (and self-proclaimed Constitutionalist) attacking the very basis of republican government. But Gingrich had at least stumbled on an essential fact: Trump isn’t just unpopular here in the District; he’s despised.