Speaking at a rally in Tampa, Florida, the president made a strange argument for voter I.D. “We believe that only American citizens should vote in American elections,” Trump said. “Which is why the time has come for voter I.D., like everything else. Voter I.D. If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need I.D. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need I.D. And you need your picture.”

Trump’s comments call to mind a false report The New York Times made in 1992 that then president George H.W. Bush was amazed at supermarket scanners. That story was misleading (Bush was in fact expressing surprise not at a normal supermarket scanner but a new model that was more advanced). The untrue story about Bush was used to portray him as out of touch.

By contrast, Trump stands convicted by his own words. He really is someone who is so isolated from ordinary social reality that one of the most common shopping experiences is alien to him.