So the real revelation in the op-ed was not of an organized resistance, but of the personal political calculus its author and other so-called unsung heroes have employed to cherry-pick the policies they favor, while “thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses.”

The author justified this Faustian bargain by citing “duty to this country,” explicitly invoking—and misappropriating—the legacy of former Senator John McCain, whom the author termed a “lodestar” of “honor in public life.”

Indeed. But by prioritizing their political agenda over the danger Trump poses, the members of the putative resistance within the administration put party and personal gain before principle and country—something McCain rarely did and, when failing to do so, acknowledged with a humility that the op-ed lacked.

He would have seen the op-ed author and the resistance for what they are—small-minded enablers, not high-minded, much less heroic, guardrails, who have shown as little respect for the democratic process as the president whose worst impulses they claim to be thwarting.