Say what you want about Session’s political views, he has always held to his principles with dignity, and he has a lifetime of impressive accomplishments under his belt. As the first senator to endorse Trump in 2016, he lent Trump desperately needed legitimacy. As attorney general, he was arguably the most instrumental figure in carrying out the Trumpist agenda on immigration. But that never mattered to Trump, because he prizes personal loyalty over effectiveness, and after Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe and subsequent Mueller investigation, Trump began routinely humiliating his attorney general…

I understand that politicians have a remarkable capacity to convince themselves that the country needs them. Surely that is what’s going on with Lindsay Graham, another senator who has debased himself to stay on the good side of Trump and his most loyal voters. But Graham is a comparatively young man, with no wife or kids to go home to. Sessions is 73, with three children and 10 grandchildren. What is so terrible about going home to that? Does the country need you so much? Or is the need to be in the room where it happens so great that selling off your dignity piecemeal is worth the price of admission?

The most depressing thing about the Trump presidency hasn’t been Trump himself, but what it has exposed in others—not just in the politicians who will debase themselves to prove their loyalty to a man incapable of returning it, but also in voters who apparently need to be told that the naked emperor’s new clothes, or at least his water drinking skills, are “Masterful!”