Leaders who support Trump — members of Congress, conservative thinkers, figures of the religious right — do so for a variety of reasons. But whatever their motivations, they are encouraging an alternate and degraded version of the American story. In Trump’s telling, this is a nation that was once great but is now besieged and infiltrated by threats to its identity. Other nations — “France is no longer France” — have allowed their distinct cultures to be overwhelmed by immigration and outside influences. The United States must be protected from the same fate by a strong leader. And Trump’s America is defined as the familiar nation of decades past, which was largely white and Christian.

In fact, the United States is the model for the world when it comes to integrating Muslims and people of other faiths into a pluralistic society. Rather than recognizing this achievement, Trump would undo it and foster the kind of conflict he warns against.

But there is even more at stake. Those who support Trump are setting the Republican Party at odds with the American story told by Lincoln and King: a nationalism defined by striving toward unifying ideals of freedom and human dignity. Is this what the speaker of the House, the Senate majority leader, the chairman of the Republican Party and so many other good people intended when they entered politics? Is this how they define their soul’s high purpose?