Trump is So Bad He Might Make People Do Horrible Things, Like Pointing Out That Trump is Bad

Weighing in on the greatest breach of civility in American politics since Ted Kennedy accurately described Robert Bork’s publicly stated views, Fred Hiatt accuses Ruth Bader Ginsburg of Trump Derangement Syndrome:

Now that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has taken herself to the woodshed, it’s worth asking what her brief bout of Trump Derangement Syndrome says about our system’s ability to withstand four years of a Trump presidency.

Short answer: It is not a good omen.

As the idea of a President Trump has evolved from laughable to unlikely to oh-my-god-this-might-actually-happen, a debate has raged in Washington.

The debate is not over the man’s fitness for office — few people privately will make the case that Donald Trump is qualified or temperamentally suitable to be commander in chief — but over how much damage he might do.

Some say that Trump could be more disruptive than any previous leader, including propelling the nation toward fascism.

[…]

At such a moment, laws could not save you; only people could. Would members of Congress, career civil servants and others stand up to Trump and for the rule of law — and could they oppose him while remaining true to principle and not descending to his level?

On the first question, the evidence from Trump’s party is not encouraging. Republicans who months ago were clear about the danger that he represents have abjectly fallen into line, albeit with varying levels of enthusiasm. If House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) cannot disavow a candidate he has accused of racism, why would we think he would be firmer when that espouser of racism lived in the White House?

The second question — could Trump’s opponents stay true to their own values? — is where the Ginsburg episode is discouraging. Like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), with his playground taunts during primary season, Ginsburg let Trump drive her to behavior she must on some level have known was wrong, tactically as well as ethically.

The derangement is understandable. Trump is corrected by fact-checkers but just restates his fictions more loudly. He insults war heroes and pays no apparent price with veterans. Lies, conspiratorial insinuations, name-calling and behavior that would knock most candidates out of contention — concealing his tax returns, for instance — do not appear to harm him.

So were Ginsburg’s comments “deranged” because they were substantively wrong? No, according to Hiatt, they were very mild given the scope of the threat Trump poses to the country. Are they wrong because Trump is owed deference? No, in fact the terrifying possibility is that Trump will be normalized and his threat to the constitutional order effectively unopposed. So the key problem with Ginsburg’s comments is that Trump is bringing out the worst in people, including…people being driven to mildly pointing out the unique threat he poses to American constitutionalism and the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

If you can make heads or tails of this argument, please let me know, because I sure can’t.