If Democrats are wise, they will embrace President Donald Trump’s demonstration that there no longer are any unwritten rules in American politics. (I’ve come to think that the key text for understanding our era is the 1997 movie Air Bud: “There’s no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball.”) Democrats should be preparing to exercise power, beginning as early as 2020, with that lesson in mind.

As we all know, Trump and the Republican Party that enables him eat norms for breakfast. A norm is a tacit and mutual agreement that certain exercises of power, while lawful, also are unthinkable. As a result, a willingness to think the unthinkable is itself a source of power. With that willingness, you can deny a president a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. You can threaten to jail your political opponents and call an election rigged if you don’t win. You can demand investigations of your enemies, you can fire the FBI director investigating you, and you can quite possibly pardon yourself for federal crimes.

Trump and Republicans are not interested in self-restraint. We ought to be past surprise, for example, that the “let the people decide” standard invented by Mitch McConnell to block Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination no longer applies now that Trump can choose a successor for Anthony Kennedy. Those who care about the future of liberal democracy in this country ought to be beyond outrage and ready for something altogether colder and more disciplined.

Democrats should plan to treat political norms, when and if they’re in charge of a unified government, the way Trump and the Republicans do. They should be readying a program of systematic norm-breaking for partisan advantage—but only if they are willing and able to follow it through to its conclusion.

A Pierce County judge has ordered the City of Tacoma to pay nearly $300,000 in penalties and fees for violating the state's Public Records Act regarding documents dealing with a police surveillance tool called a cell site simulator.

Superior Court Judge G. Helen Whitener ruled earlier this year that the city improperly withheld 11 documents from the American Civil Liberties Union. On Monday, Whitener issued a ruling tallying the cost

▪ $182,340 for violations of the Public Records Act.

▪ $115,530 for attorney fees and other costs.

Whitener said in her ruling that the city deliberately withheld several documents that should have been provided, including spreadsheet with entries that included cell site simulator uses, records provided to 37 prior requestors and emails between the city and the FBI...