Finally, there’s the third argument, which is the most honest and also the most morally horrifying: David Horowitz’s argument that Democrats are so disgusting that even if Moore did it, he wouldn’t care, because the Democrats must be stopped. This binary thinking would justify a vote for anyone who votes the right way on legislation; President Trump could have literally shot someone on Fifth Avenue, and Horowitz would have supported him. In this view, character doesn’t matter at all and we aren’t destroying the social fabric of the country when we prize policy outcomes over basic decency. In fact, the Horowitz angle holds that basic decency can be ensured only by desired policy outcomes: All that matters is politics.

This argument goes too far. If we’re really at the point in American politics where political opposition requires electing credibly accused child molesters, then we ought to put down ballots and pick up guns. Any evil so grave that we must elect sexual abusers to stop it is an evil that merits a violent response.