Blame for the ongoing destruction wrought by the Trump administration will always attach to Donald Trump. But Trump cannot help himself. He is a pathogen, doing what pathogens do, and as surprised as anyone to have found himself replicating in the nation’s bloodstream. Equal blame will attach to a small group of experienced and seemingly rational politicians who knew exactly what Trump was like; who had cause to loathe and distrust him; who understood firsthand that he knew nothing about government and did not care to know anything; who could see clearly that he was dangerous, brutal, and corrupt; and who nonetheless decided, after occasional protests, to help him achieve and hold power. These are people who have been repeatedly belittled and mocked by Trump, who have sometimes been forced to voice their disgust at his words and actions, and who—for reasons that range from ambition and fear to denial and moral blindness—not only have declined to stand in his way but continue to prop him up. One or more of them may ultimately decide to defy him, but nothing will absolve them of the damage already done.

Meet the Washington insiders enabling Donald Trump in the video below.

I. The Opportunist

The first time Donald Trump publicly criticized Paul Ryan was in March of 2012, shortly after Trump had decided not to run for president. Ryan had unveiled a Republican budget before Obama released the Democratic version. Trump thought it was a strategic mistake. “Whether @RepPaulRyan’s plan is sound fiscal policy is not the relevant issue,” Trump tweeted. “The issue is strategic timing. Why release it now?” The two men met personally early on during the next presidential campaign, and the relationship had already begun to curdle. Speaking in New Hampshire, and as a Republican presidential candidate, Trump let his disdain for Ryan be known. “When I heard Paul Ryan, and I like Paul Ryan as a person, but when I heard Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan—I mean, what he’s known for is killing entitlements—I said that election is over.” In July 2015, after Trump made his first comments about Mexicans’ sending “their rapists” to the U.S., Ryan said, “He doesn’t speak for the Republican Party, and I think his comments were extremely disrespectful, and I don’t think that’s the way to have an immigration conversation.” When Trump leveled an accusation of bias against Judge Gonzalo Curiel because Curiel’s ancestors were Mexican, Ryan was quick to repudiate the comments: “Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment.” (At the time, Curiel was presiding over a lawsuit which alleged fraud by Trump University, and which Trump eventually settled for $25 million.) When Trump first suggested a ban on Muslims’ entering the United States—unconstitutional on its face—Ryan said, “What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for. And, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.” After the Access Hollywood tape was made public—in which Trump bragged to host Billy Bush that he could do anything he wanted to women, including “grab them by the pussy,” because he was famous—Ryan maintained that he was “sickened by what I heard today.” Add all this up and you have a man who has said in public what he surely believes in private: that by every measure Trump is unfit for high office. And yet Ryan—whom Trump has called “weak and ineffective”—gave Trump his endorsement and has covered for him repeatedly. After the election, at a meeting of the House Republican caucus, Ryan responded to the assertion by one member that Trump was on the Russian payroll with a warning to everyone in the room: “No leaks,” he said, according to a recording of the exchange obtained by The Washington Post. “This is how we know we’re a real family here.” After former F.B.I. director James Comey described what he said was a request by Trump to drop a criminal investigation into former national-security adviser Michael Flynn’s Russia contacts, Ryan excused Trump’s alleged behavior by noting simply, “He’s just new to this.” The bargain Ryan has made is clear—it’s the one spelled out by Grover Norquist back in 2012, when Norquist defended the choice of Mitt Romney by saying he’d also have endorsed a monkey, a plate of lasagna, or a potted plant. All Norquist wanted was “a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign legislation. Ryan wants to gut the safety net for the poor and cut taxes for the wealthy, and believes that with Trump he can do that. He said recently that he had dreamed of cutting Medicaid since his keg-drinking days. Having Trump’s digits on the Resolute Desk—whatever the existential risk to the principles of the country as a whole—is a small price to pay.

II. The Cynic

Mitch McConnell, a deft and mercurial Republican senator and the majority leader since 2015, is a creature of Washington. As Alec MacGillis has documented in his shrewd and doggedly reported book The Cynic, McConnell has never had any longstanding political values. He has allowed himself to be filled—initially by hired consultants—with whatever positions would keep money rolling in and ensure his continual election and, now, his supremacy in the Senate. That is his enduring principle. Maintaining this status requires fealty to die-hard Trump voters who make up the most active portion of the Republican base. So be it.

McConnell’s track record of disagreeing with Trump but continuing to support him is impressive. In 2015, when Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” McConnell told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “We’re not going to follow that suggestion that this particular candidate made. It would prevent the president of Afghanistan from coming to the United States. The King of Jordan couldn’t come to the United States.” In early 2016, McConnell reportedly laid out a plan for congressional lawmakers to break with Trump—if he became the nominee—in the general election. That effort failed, and McConnell quickly came around, arguing that Trump wouldn’t have much impact one way or the other. “Trump is not going to change the institution,” McConnell said on Hugh Hewitt’s morning radio show, referring to the Republicans. “He’s not going to change the basic philosophy of the party.” When Trump hesitated before rejecting the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, McConnell stated that “Senate Republicans condemn David Duke, the K.K.K., and his racism”—but he didn’t mention Trump by name. In July, when Trump attacked the Gold Star parents of Captain Humayun Khan, who had been killed in the line of duty, McConnell called Captain Khan an “American hero”—but again didn’t mention Trump.