Political observers privy to Donald Trump’s migraine-inducing, reckless comments on Monday about the Second Amendment as a form of resistance to Hillary Clinton’s presidency heard something sickeningly familiar. Imagine if the GOP’s 2010 nominee for U.S. Senate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, ran for president. It’s easy if you try.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seemed like a particularly vulnerable incumbent in the summer of 2010 as what appeared to be a massive Republican wave election was just building strength. Though she was a flawed, fringe Republican senatorial nominee, Angle seemed to be a viable alternative to Reid for Nevada’s frustrated voters. Viable, that is, until opposition researchers began to dig up some of her more radical positions and statements.

“I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry,” Angle told conservative talk show host Bill Manders. She added that the Founding Fathers included the right to firearm ownership in the Bill of Rights as a bulwark against governmental tyranny. “I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies,” she added. “I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.”

The comment, among others, undid Angle’s candidacy. Her opponents framed the remark as a suggestion that insurrection against the federal government backed by force of arms was both virtuous and justified. “Her sentiments are sick,” said DNC National Press Secretary Hari Sevugan, adding that it’s clear Angle “wishes death upon her critics.” Angle lost a winnable race for Senate in Nevada in 2010. She deserved to lose.

As perverse as her sentiment was, it’s not at all clear that the DNC’s hyperbolic denunciations were justified by the context of her comments. Angle wasn’t calling for insurrection, but expressing the hope to see one averted. That’s no excuse, however, for what were irresponsible and subversive assertions that undermined the legitimacy of the federal government. Donald Trump deserves none of these benefits of doubt. What he said at a rally on Tuesday was worse than anything Angle ever uttered.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the second amendment,” Trump said. “By the way, if she gets to pick–if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do. But the second amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.”

There is plenty to unpack there. The intentionally vague and suggestive assertion on Trump’s part leaves him room to contend that his intent was not to provide encouragement to the mentally unstable and potentially violent. The intent is, however, beside the point. Not only has Trump erased whatever good he sought to do for his campaign by pivoting for the umpteenth time to an issue of concern for the nation’s voters—the economy—but he has reset his campaign back to February when Trump was explicitly and routinely inciting violence.

Democrats will express as much outrage over this comment as they can muster, and they should. It would be political malpractice not to raise as much ire as possible over such a misstep by their presidential opponent. That kind of outrage is also the due reaction of any civically-minded American.

If Republicans were looking for a way out from under Trump and a means by which they could distance themselves from him and the drag he will prove to be on the prospects of the GOP’s incumbents, they have it. There is no excuse for this kind of discourse from a public figure, much less someone vying to lead the nation and the free world.