“How do you know there’s an Irishman at a cock fight?” an old joke begins. “Someone enters a duck.”

We don’t have much cock fighting in these parts anymore, but we do have a Republican primary for president. Many conservatives and Republicans are rightly disgusted by President Trump’s embarrassing behavior, his toxic rhetoric, his flagrant disregard for facts, his dangerous embrace of strongmen and dictators, and his destructive bad policies. They would love to vote for someone else in a Republican primary. The probability of Trump losing in a primary is near zero, but there’s value in giving people a chance to cast a protest vote, whether to send Trump a message or just for catharsis.