So President Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, has always been particularly revolting to me. The day before, former national security adviser Michael Flynn had appeared on the conservative cable network Newsmax to argue that Trump could deploy the military to rerun the 2020 presidential election. The next day, Trump had Flynn into the Oval Office to discuss the idea. According to an account in The Post, then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone pushed back “strenuously” against a military takeover of the electoral process. I know that elected Republicans who stick up for Trump have sacrificed their honor and conscience too many times to feel any stirring of shame. But maybe just a specter of sanity still haunts their lonely hours. They are actively defending a man who stained the history of the presidency with a meeting at which martial law was on the agenda. They are enablers of a political figure who hates our system of government whenever it conflicts with his interests... It is clear what these Republicans are saying to Americans: Serving the country has ceased to interest them, and their deepest loyalty now belongs to power alone. It is also clear what they’re saying to Trump: He has their full permission to assault, once again, the political system he tried and failed to destroy.