Sadly, this is how the Republican leadership is justifying uniting behind an unstable candidate who has shifted the party away from laissez-faire capitalism to a right-wing nationalistic populism. Here’s how RNC communications director Sean Spicer spun it for The Washington Post:

For almost three years, he was one of the town’s most ardent advocates for free trade. Today, he is fighting for Trump, the most protectionist GOP nominee in decades. He acknowledges the contradiction, but Spicer’s tradecraft places a greater value on loyalty than consistency. “There are doctors who help people who have done bad things, there are lawyers who defend bad people,” he said. “I don’t think it’s unique to my profession.”

While it is true that a doctor will treat a criminal and a lawyer will defend him, shouldn’t politics be different? O.J. Simpson’s lawyers might’ve successfully flim-flammed a jury, but they weren’t trying to make The Juice the leader of the free world and put his finger on the nuclear button.

For what it’s worth, the phoniness of the political class is precisely what Trump ran against. As Spicer shows, for many operatives politics is simply about winning, divorced from ideas or the public consequences of people’s actions.