These men and women should not be ready to serve permanently, regardless of what their new boss does in office. If a Trump presidency lurches into naked authoritarianism — abusing executive authority in unprecedented ways, issuing immoral or illegal orders to the military — then there will be an obligation not to serve, but to resign. And the gray area between these two obligations will create a lot of territory in which Trump appointees could succumb to moral corruption, justifying their toleration for enormities on the grounds that “the greater good requires me to stay.”
But unlike in the campaign, when Republicans who endorsed him early were effectively enabling his rise to power, at this particular moment there is no further rise to be enabled. Trump is the president-elect, he will be the most powerful man in the world, whether good people decide to go to work for him or not. So if he is willing to make some responsible appointments, the good of the world requires that responsible people accept them, in the hopes that the first potential evil of his presidency — incompetence, leading to instability, leading to disasters — can be avoided.
Other evils may await, but sufficient unto this day this one. So if he calls, answer.
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