What is the harm in all this? First, we are seeing the corruption of the Republican Party, as it tolerates, excuses and absorbs Trump’s conspiratorial thinking.

Consider the most recent WikiLeaks hack. The data breach caused serious damage to American security. And some conservatives cheered. It is a funhouse mirror reflection of the New Left in the 1960s — led by ideology to root against the interests of their own country.

Second, these attacks on the intelligence community continue Trump’s campaign to delegitimize institutions that offer a view of reality different from his own. To maintain his version of daily events, the mainstream media must be discredited as “fake news.” On economic policy, the Congressional Budget Office must be discredited as biased. To tilt foreign policy toward Russia and away from traditional friends, the intelligence community must be discredited.

Third, talk of a “silent coup” encourages frightening, extra- constitutional thinking. If this is more than a metaphor, an existential threat to democracy has been raised. And an administration actually believing this might go beyond leak investigations and feel justified in scarier, Nixonian remedies.

Trump does not face a coup, just a government he has attacked and refused to lead.