It really is okay to say so when you like Trump’s actions and when you don’t like Trump’s actions.

In the wake of yesterday’s absurd, reality-TV-esque “Epstein files” stunt — actually, if you’re not caught up, here’s Jeff aptly describing it:

What the heck was that I just saw? Am I hallucinating after accidentally ingesting fly agaric mushrooms, or did I actually watch Attorney General Pam Bondi pose with bloggers in a photo op outside the front door of the White House while holding the purported “Epstein files” in their hands? And all for this puny document?

Anyhow, in the wake of that — see more details here — I have seen a debate spring up within the right-wing “influencer” community. The topic: Is it okay to criticize Trump over this failure, or is criticizing Trump over this failure akin to “turning against” him? I would like to use this opportunity to once again make a point that I have been making since January 20, 2017: that this is a profoundly stupid way to look at politics as the citizen of a free country, and that everybody who does so ought to be mightily ashamed of himself.

Before you ask: No, I do not expect to convince self-described “influencers” that they ought to be more discerning. Unfortunately, though, “influencers” are not the only ones who act in this way. For ten years now, it has been absolutely rife in the press and in our broader politics, and, though less transparent perhaps, it is no less absurd there than it is on social media. As a free person, you should not be debating whether or not you are going to “abandon” the president, because you should never have been “committed” to the president in the first instance. He’s an elected official, not a wife or a brother or a God. Certainly, there is a little room for this sort of Manichaean thinking during primaries or general elections, because, while they leave a lot of room for analysis, those events nevertheless require one to decide whether to vote for or against a given candidate — or, as in my case recently, to abstain from that decision completely. After that, however — that is, once one of those candidates has become president — that framework becomes utterly useless.

Donald Trump is the president. That is a fact. Trump won, he was inaugurated, and, until he is removed by Congress, or resigns, or dies, he will exercise all the powers of the office. It is no more useful to repeat that one is “for” or “against” this reality than it is to repeat that one is “for” or “against” the existence of water. Irrespective of one’s preferences, there is absolutely nothing that one can do about it. In consequence, many of the phrases that we routinely hear used whenever Trump is president are completely meaningless. There is no such thing as “the resistance” or the “Trump train,” and nor does it make sense to describe discrete assessments of the man’s actions as if they must follow ineluctably from a “pro-Trump” or “anti-Trump” or “anti-anti-Trump” disposition. Four years is a long time, and, in that time, Trump is inevitably going to do things that one either supports or opposes. The appropriate response to this is not to pull on a jersey and scream onto the field, but to earnestly evaluate which is which.

Perhaps that sounds obvious. But, judging by the state of our discourse, it’s not — which is why the “influencers” are now debating whether they should drop their reflexive support of everything Trump does, and why publications such as The Bulwark spend their time policing anyone who ever agrees with Trump on anything, and why it has become downright impossible for writers of any stripe to pen anything about the president without receiving hundreds of emails from people who are obsessed with where each and every comment sits on the “pro-Trump” or “anti-Trump” continuum. If I sound as if I’m complaining here, rest assured that I am. My job — in a republic, everyone’s job — is to judge their elected officials as a boss might judge his employees or a jury might judge a man in the dock. To begin the exercise with an implacable presumption is to undermine the whole operation. If a person who generally likes the president finds himself thinking, “Well, I think he’s wrong about this, but I don’t want to say that, lest I be labeled a heretic,” he should feel extremely ashamed. Likewise for the man who generally loathes the president and cannot bring himself to acknowledge when he is right. Unless one quite literally works for the president — or is explicitly employed to defend and advance his agenda — there is never a good reason for such mindless boosterism or such thoughtless disdain. That way lies intellectual suicide and the further deterioration of our culture.

The same is true of a correlated argument, which is that the president represents such a threat — or such an opportunity — that to criticize him is in effect to criticize the survival — or restoration — of the nation. This idea, too, is commonly implied within our “national conversation,” with one set of drones regarding any praise for the White House as being tantamount to collaboration with evil and another set of drones considering that even the most temporary cavilers do not understand the stakes. This is so much dramatic nonsense, of course, and it would remain dramatic nonsense even if we lived in far more alarming times than we actually do. There are no circumstances — not a civil war, not an economic calamity, not even a descent into tyranny — in which it would be helpful for observers to pick a side at the outset and then to never, ever praise or castigate those who wield power in their name. If, as I hope is the case, one would never accept being bound to a solid bloc of political views by the actions of the police, then one ought not to accept being bound to a solid bloc of views by one’s own designs. Really, I can assure you from personal experience that it’s fine to say that you like Trump on this or dislike him on that — and even to do so enthusiastically in both cases. The world won’t end if you do.