There was something unmanly about the way his erstwhile conservative critics rushed to abase themselves before him, abandoning their previous convictions and raging at the handful of Reaganite commentators who stuck to theirs. I continue to believe that, had the Republicans seized any of their numerous opportunities to ditch the Donald and replace him with former Vice President Mike Pence, they would now hold both Congress and the White House.

But I never gave up on the party itself. When I spoke privately to its leading figures, including several who in public went along with Trump’s most boorish, cowardly, and self-centered pronouncements, I was reassured that they were still republican in the basic sense of recognizing that the republic is bigger than the people running it.

Now, I’m starting to wonder. Their response to the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago makes me doubt whether the party is still in any sense constitutionalist. Rallying to the defense of their caudillo, congressmen, Fox News anchors and talk show hosts are calling for the FBI to be defunded or disbanded. Conservative agitators strive to outdo one another in their outrage — without, as far as I can tell, expressing any curiosity about whether Trump has in fact broken the law.