Trump’s ‘January Seventh Test’ of loyalty

President-elect Donald Trump has made it no secret that loyalty will be his chief criterion in putting together his incoming administration.

His early picks, however, suggest he has a specific standard of fealty — one that ensures that those around him will not check his worst and most dangerous impulses.

Call it the January Seventh Test.

Clearing that bar are those who, after Trump incited his supporters to overturn his 2020 election defeat by storming the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, minimized his responsibility for the bloody siege. If they managed to stomach what Trump did that day, it should be assumed they would not stand in the way of any further trampling of democratic norms that the returning president might order.