The thing I’m finding most frustrating, after more than a week of extreme frustration, is a thing many conservative allies are doing, and it is this: the idea that any opposition to an action by Trump is illegitimate if that action is something another Republican might do. I’m not talking about Trump supporters, but I know a significant number of people who are, more or less, just as opposed to and frightened by Trump as I am, but lie toward the right of the political spectrum.

This has created odd and uneasy alliances, and I welcome them. Ideological purity is a great way for a movement to eat itself. I heap criticism on the craven Republicans who have gotten into bed with Trump, convinced that he is their ticket to achieving their big issue (usually lowering taxes on the wealthy and destroying what vestiges of a social safety net we have in this country, but we can throw abortion bans in for good measure, too). I should equally praise those who might also want those things but believe that Trump is too high a price.

But here’s the thing: It isn’t illegitimate for me to oppose those things. Of course Republican anti-Trump allies aren’t expected to drop their other political preferences. But Democrats are supposed to roll over and only fight back when Trump is incompetent or obviously corrupt, like we should all be able to agree that the one true policy preference is whatever Jeb Bush would have done.

Let me be clear. Trump isn’t the only problem. He isn’t even an isolated problem. If Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio had won the Republican primary and gone on to lose the popular vote by almost three million, but squeak by into an electoral college win, all my problems wouldn’t disappear. I’m horrified by Trump’s incompetence and his white nationalist agenda. But he didn’t come out of nowhere. I’m furious that Senator McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat (and no, there’s no nicer way to put it). I’m furious that a president who bent over backwards to meet Republicans half way only led to the vilification of a centrist Republican health care plan as tyrannical. And none of this magically goes away with Trump.

Of course complaints about Democratic opposition don’t stop these same people from criticizing the Democratic leadership for being weak. No, there’s no leadership, they say. It’s a broken party. Why can’t someone stand up and lead an opposition? The only people doing anything to oppose Trump are conservative iconoclasts! Make statements? They’re only empty words. Vote against a measure? Empty opposition that won’t make a difference. Speak out? You’re frothing at the mouth. It’s like everything he does is bad. I’m losing patience. Join a protest? See this is just as bad as Trump, we can’t hand things off to a popular uprising. Use parliamentary maneuvers to obstruct and draw things out? You’re breaking more norms! This is why Trump is bad, and you’re making it worse!

Meanwhile if you’re a moderate Republican lawmaker all you have to do is a subtle wag of your finger and a light statement, and you’re suddenly (or rather again) independent Saint McCain. (Never mind about Palin, waffling on torture during the Bush years, declaring an intention to prevent Clinton from filling the empty Supreme Court seat for her full term if she won, none of which are, apparently as damaging to US norms as it would be for a Democratic senator to deny unanimous consent.)

The bottom line is that no one wants Democrats to be effective. Left wing purists see parties as, at best, a necessary evil because they involve building coalitions with people with whom you don’t 100% align, and Democrats are the worst of the bunch for being such a big tent. Republicans don’t like Democrats because they’re Republicans. It’s just so easy to believe the narrative that Democrats are screwing everything up.¹ And it’s equally easy to believe moderate Republicans are the salvation. For the left, the bar is so much lower because when they speak up, it’s a pleasant surprise and a sign of hope. For the anti-Trump right, it’s just so much more comfortable. So the goal posts shift where they need to go. And yes, this has something to do with many of those same anti-Trump people dragging their feet on voting for Clinton or deciding to make a “principled” vote for Gary Johnson.