I have changed my mind.

President Trump’s superpower isn’t that he can drag his critics down with him. His superpower is revealing that they are right at home in the muck.

Prior to the 2016 presidential election, GQ magazine’s Julia Ioffe would make the occasional ignorant pronouncement. She was also no stranger to saying nasty things about those with whom she disagreed politically and personally. When these things would happen, she would normally apologize, and the incident would be chalked up to a momentary lapse of reason. But these supposed “lapses” have become near-daily occurrences for Ioffe in the Trump era, leaving one to suspect that "nasty" and "ignorant" have always been her default positions and that the moderate character she used to play was a put-on.

Following a fatal mass shooting this weekend at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, for example, the GQ correspondent blamed Jews who cheered the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“And a word to my fellow American Jews: This president makes this possible. Here. Where you live. I hope the embassy move over there, where you don’t live was worth it,” she tweeted.

Later, during an appearance on CNN, Ioffe accused the president of outperforming even the Islamic State in terms of radicalizing followers.

"I think this president, one of the things that he really launched his presidential run on is talking about Islamic radicalization. And this president has radicalized so many more people than ISIS ever did," Ioffe said during a broader discussion on the synagogue mass shooting.

She added, "That way he winks and nods to these groups, 'I know I'm not supposed to say it, but I'm a nationalist.' The way that he hems and haws when he has to condemn these people and gritting his teeth, kind of says, 'Fine, okay, I condemn this.’”

Ioffe attempted a sort of ambivalent backtrack later, saying on Twitter, “I clarified and apologized on air, but I’ll say it again here. This has been a very emotional and painful time, but I absolutely should not have gone with such hyperbole on the air. I apologize.”

But then she un-backtracked, writing, “I will add, though, that it is not a coincidence that the number of anti-Semitic attacks has jumped nearly 60% in 2017—the biggest one-year increase in recent history—while this administration has systematically pulled back resources from countering domestic extremism.” In other words: Sorry, not sorry.

On Monday, she continued her personal descent into Trumpian absurdity, tweeting, “I have to say, I feel less safe as a journalist in America these days than I ever did in Russia. A lot less safe.”

That’s a hell of a comparison to make, considering Russian government and military officials, as well as Russian paramilitary and political groups, are responsible for murdering an estimated 20 journalists in Russia between 1992 and 2018, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Four of the victims were tortured.

In contrast, “ supporters of ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide” are responsible for the single politically motivated murder of a journalist in the last 26 years in the U.S., where news correspondents like Ioffe are free to accuse the president himself of incest, and I suppose now murder as well, with complete impunity.

If it were just one thing, one could argue Ioffe merely succumbed to raw emotion this weekend, for which she should readily be given a pass. But the above examples represent an extended, multiday anti-Trump tirade, each pronouncement more ridiculous than the last. It’s enough to make a person think this side of her was always there, struggling to get out, and that what we used to characterize as momentary lapses of reason were actually brief glimpses of her most authentic self.

My theory now is that Trump’s own incapacity for shame has emboldened his critics to revel in their similarly outrageous and shameless personae. Trump doesn't just drag down his critics. He just makes the mud irresistible to them.