Donald Trump is a lawless president and revolting person who richly deserved his impeachment and, in a better world, would be convicted in the Senate and removed from the White House. That’s my view, as it is the view of a plurality — albeit a narrow plurality — of the American people.

Ergo, every American who feels this way has a moral obligation to vote for whoever winds up being the Democratic nominee, even if the nominee turns out to be Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Right?

Well, hang on.

I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now, thanks mainly to some good-natured prodding from my colleague Gail Collins in our published conversations. The strongest version of the argument is this: Say what you will about Warren’s or Sanders’s policies, neither candidate poses any serious threat to our constitutional order, just as neither possesses Trump’s crippling character flaws or has such contempt for the institutions, traditions and habits of a free and civilized society.

In short, while a Warren or Sanders presidency might drastically rearrange the furniture in our common democratic home, it will not — as Trump’s has — seek to blast away at the foundations. What’s more, a decisive loss by Trump might have the added benefit of chastening conservatives who abandoned their former “free people, free markets” convictions in favor of Trump’s nativist demagogy.