This week in the saga

The silence has a loophole, and it is the oldest one he has. In Florence, South Carolina, the first rally of the season fills a fairground: ninety minutes on the border, the prices, the election he still calls stolen, the weak men who replaced him. Ten thousand raised phones carry the speech to every network in the world except the one that carries his name — where the account still holds its single post and the waiting list still is not moving. By morning the field is empty and the silence closes back over the week like water.