There were responsible ways to cut taxes on things we want more of — like corporate investment — while boosting them on things we want less of — like carbon, reckless financial speculation and diabetes — that could have stimulated jobs and growth but also left us more financially and environmentally resilient. But both Trump and the anonymous-G.O.P. crowd rejected them, just as they rejected smart improvements to Obamacare, preferring a total scrapping.

So when Republicans say they’re disgusted by Trump’s ignorance and indecency but love his “deregulations” and “tax reforms” — those very sanitized words — this is what they love: taking huge fiscal and environmental risks — effectively throwing away our bumpers and spare tires that we may soon need to drive through the next financial or climate storm — for a short-term economic and political high.

How different is that from Trump’s indecency? Let’s be clear, Trump cheated on his wife, but his party’s now cheating on their kids. You tell me who’s worse.

And don’t get me started on the recently signed $716 billion defense budget for the 2019 fiscal year — a spending hike so dramatic, as defense analyst Lawrence Korb pointed out, that it means since Trump took office under two years ago, “the defense budget will have grown by $133 billion, or 23 percent.” And there’s no major war going on.

Here again, the anonymous-Republicans equate a bigger defense budget and more weapons with strategy and strength. Thus, by definition, if Trump increased defense spending, he did something right. Did I miss the series of congressional hearings with independent military experts that addressed the question: What are the new (and old) threats we’re facing today, and how will these new and vastly expensive weapons systems enable us to better address them?

Some of the smartest military analysts I know think that investing in so many big, new weapons systems is the equivalent of taking sledgehammers to droplets of quicksilver, considering that so many enemies we face today are super-empowered individuals or nations that have opted to hurt us with cheap cyberweapons and cheap but massive swarming tactics.

Did any of these Republican lawmakers take note of the Iranian naval exercise in the gulf in August ? The Iranians took some big old ships from the shah’s days and said “you will be the American Navy.” And then they used swarming tactics to ravage those big ships — deploying scores of very small, cheap speedboats and kamikaze coastal craft, armed with light missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.