The leading Democratic Party organ in the country is out with an editorial on what it calls “the Trump effect.” It seeks to tar the entire Republican field with responsibility for Donald Trump’s call to suspend Muslim immigration until we can get a handle on the current crisis. The Gray Lady launched that editorial the day after she herself issued in her own opinion pages a long piece pointing out that putting a religious test on immigration is not unconstitutional.

This is rich. The Times writes as if it is the leading pro-immigration paper and the leading defender of minority religions. It is neither. The leading and most principled pro-immigration newspaper in America is the Wall Street Journal, which has stated its support, in principle, for an open borders amendment. The leading defenders of religious liberty in America are the conservative First Amendment lawyers and GOP intelligentsia.

Yet the Times warns, in respect of Mr. Trump, against the “mistake of treating him as a solitary phenomenon, a singular celebrity narcissist who has somehow, all alone, brought his party and its politics to the brink of fascism.” Rather, the Times reckons, he is “the leading Republican candidate for president.” Mr. Trump’s outrageous comments, the Times asserts, were not spawned, nor have they flourished, in isolation.”

No, the Times blames the whole GOP for failing to take adequate issue with the candidate who, though the front runner, is favored, according to the Real Clear Politics’ recent average of polls, by only 30.4% in a large Republican field; 57% of the party seems to favor someone other than Mr. Trump. We wouldn’t want to gainsay the Times’ sincerity. It’s probably at a point in its decay where it actually believes the GOP is a fascist party.

One of the columnists it’s fronting this morning, Timothy Egan, who normally seems like a friendly fellow, is out with a headline called “Goose-Steppers in the G.O.P.,” exulting that Trump has got the “Hitler vote.” This is because a Web site called the “Daily Stormer” is out with a headline “Heil Donald.” Plus, Mr. Egan writes that David Duke “liked everything he heard from Trump this week, embracing him for standing up for white nationalism.”

That’s one of the oldest maneuvers in the newspaperman’s kit. We’ve used it ourselves when David Duke was praising Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Yet the cat has had Mr. Egan’s tongue when the pro-Nazi types have gone after Israel. Which, come to think of it, is odd — wait until the Daily Stormer and David Duke discover that Mr. Trump’s daughter is a convert to Orthodox Judaism. They may yet endorse a Democrat.

Then you’ve got your Paul Krugman. He’s out today with a column about “empowering the ugliness,” which he blames on the “establishment” in both Europe and America for, basically, not running big enough budget deficits and keeping interest rates as high as zero. This is the same Paul Krugman who as recently as 2003 ran a column kvelling about Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia. The column’s sub-hedline was “the uses of anti-Semitism.”

Mahathir had just finished a tirade about how “the Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy.” Warned he: “We are up against a people who think.” He reckoned: “They get others to fight and die for them.” Mr. Krugman reacted to this with a perfunctory phrase about how it was inexcusable. Then he went on a long panegyric about what a great guy Mahathir was.

Indeed, despite Mahathir’s abuses of power, Mr. Krugman insisted, he was “neither ignorant nor foolish” but “about as forward-looking a Muslim leader as we’re likely to find.” His strident rhetoric, Mr. Krugman purred, “was actually part of a delicate balancing act aimed at domestic politics.” Maybe the Times would be happier if Mr. Trump attacked the Jews. What he’s done is called for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” — an over-reaction to which the Times protests too much.