In just the last week, Trump has twice attacked the rule of law. Andrew Sullivan wrote about one example in New York magazine. “Day after day, the president has publicly savaged his own attorney general for doing the only thing possible with an investigation into a political campaign he was a key part of: recusing himself,” he observed. “And the point of the president’s fulminations was that the recusal prevented Sessions from obstructing that very investigation. The president, in other words, has been openly attacking his own attorney general for not subverting the rule of law.”

And in a speech to police officers, Trump said:

When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don't be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over. Like, don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody. Don't hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, okay?

This prompted clapping from many of the police officers immediately behind Trump in footage of the speech and cheering from some of the people in the crowd—the words were immediately corrosive to their culture—followed by a series of criticisms of Trump from cops in leadership positions in cities all over the United States.

4.

As I noted last September, Trump has a cruel streak. “He willfully causes pain and distress to others. And he repeats this public behavior so frequently that it’s fair to call it a character trait. Any single example would be off-putting but forgivable. Being shown many examples across many years should make any decent person recoil in disgust.”

The list of examples has only grown in the interim—and we have every indication that Trump will continue to flaunt his cruelty to others in public regularly for the next four years.

* * *

Later on in that Red State post that I quoted at the top, Berry writes that “Andrew Breitbart himself thought Donald Trump was a con man and no conservative, but he doubtlessly would have enjoyed the showmanship and sheer disruption of Trump’s primary campaign. And as we sift through the rubble left in his wake and look for a path forward, we should not overlook Breitbart’s dictum. Because for all the talk about the politics of ‘Trumpism,’ a major part of what allowed Trump to rise and prevail in the primary was his prominence in popular culture as well as the generally debased state of American culture in general these days.”

That is true. And it doesn’t speak well of Breitbart’s legacy that the website and populist ethos he helped to create did so much to elevate someone he saw as a con man.

The Republican Party should be more farsighted about embracing nihilistic populism.

As David French put it, “Words still matter, and the president’s words are often reprehensible. A conservative can fight for tax reform, celebrate military victories over ISIS in Mosul, and applaud Trump’s judicial appointments while also condemning Trump’s vile tweets and criticizing his impulsiveness and lack of discipline. A good conservative can even step back and take a longer view, resolving to fight for the cultural values that tribalism degrades. Presidents matter not just because of their policies but also because of their impact on the character of the people they govern.”

Republicans should turn on Trump, en masse, right now. The longer the president enjoys a large degree of institutional support, rather than being regarded as a pariah by all, the more likely it is that other indecent, uncivil, weak, self-justifying, overindulgent, cruel men with little regard for truth or the rule of law will rise.