On one side are those — including The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf, The New York Times’ Ross Douthat, and Arc Digital’s Berny Belvedere — who strongly oppose Donald Trump and think the best way to prevent him from winning the Republican nomination, and possibly the presidency, in 2024 is to fall in behind a more decent alternative, possibly Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, or maybe Glenn Youngkin, who was just elected governor in Virginia.

On the other side are Sarah Longwell and her colleagues at The Bulwark (where I contribute to a weekly podcast). They believe DeSantis, Youngkin, and most of the other potential contenders for the GOP nomination in 2024 who aren’t named Trump have failed to distance themselves sufficiently from the 45th president, especially when it comes to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. If they won’t clearly and unequivocally state that Trump lost and Biden won that contest, how can we know that they won’t shred these and other essential democratic norms the moment the rabidly Trumpfied base of the party demands it?