In the immediate aftermath of last year’s election—before anyone could know for sure how thuggishly the Trump transition would conduct itself, or how resistant the president-elect would be to running the government in the public interest—large swaths of the conservative professional class faced a moral quandary. “It’s safe to assume that the figures who denounced [Donald Trump] most vocally will not be in line for key positions,” wrote conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. “But for others, especially the many younger public servants who would normally staff a Republican administration, a hard question looms: If they fear how Trump might govern, can they in good conscience work for him?”

Douthat, among others, argued persuasively that this reluctant class of public servants, professional climbers, and experienced hands should agree to join the administration precisely because Trump was an object of fear—but only if they were prepared at some point to quit in protest. If the presidency descended beyond a gray zone of morally questionable leadership into a realm of lawlessness and corruption, “then there will be an obligation not to serve, but to resign.”

Six months later, we have very clearly entered that realm. On Monday, the conservative legal scholar Jack Goldsmith, who served in George W. Bush’s Department of Justice, wondered on Twitter, “How much can *executive branch officials* indulge the presumption of regularity in their work? And: To the extent that they can’t, how long do they continue to serve?”

Trump officials’ answers to those questions will differ depending on their positions, but the number of them who can claim their continued service is morally requisite is dwindling rapidly by the day.

Obviously, not everybody who set their misgivings aside to join the Trump administration was a chaste actor. Some surely gave themselves over to thoughts of high-status job titles and future paydays, and are past the point of no return. But to the extent that moral considerations entered into one’s decision to serve Trump, the time to reconsider has arrived. To a deeply depressing extent, the decision to leave or stay turns on two overlapping questions: