Dallas, Texas, already known as the site of one of the most tragic days in the history of the American presidency, was on Wednesday home to another dark political chapter, albeit one of a starkly different nature.

Appearing before a crowd of loyalists and seat-fillers in a not-anything-like-full auditorium, President Donald Trump fell to his knees, drenched in flop sweat, and begged the American people to vote Republican in November. His desperation was so palpable—a realization that a defeat in two months will mean the effective end of his era—that he resembled nothing so much as a gangster in a 1930s movie being dragged by his armpits to the electric chair while pleading for his life.

“Give me another chance! I’ll turn over a new leaf! You’ll see! Hey, screw, let me outta here and I’ll make it worth your while! Hey, Ma, don’t let ‘em do this to me. Little Donny is too young to go!”

What was supposed to be a celebration of Trump turned into a pathetic public freakout.

Naturally, while the perspiration and the agitation were apparent, Trump’s pleas took the form we’re most accustomed to hearing from him: fraudulent promises wrapped in lies inside a welter of threats and lunatic non-sequiturs.

The most notable of those fraudulent promises was also the most desperate.

Trump “offered” to pay American voters $5,000 each if they returned Republicans to the majority in Congress in November. Never mind that it was an overt bribe and therefore........

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