As a former White House correspondent covering the Trump administration, I distinctly recall the predictable cycle of Republicans protesting or ducking from reporters, and then sheepishly defending each successive scandal: Charlottesville, the Comey defenestration and Mueller investigation, two impeachments, etcetera. Each time, the party split between the president’s MAGA allies, who insisted that Trump’s latest transgression would energize the base, and the cautious Washington hands—the ones who’d end up scurrying away from the administration after January 6—who privately insisted that this was certainly the last straw. But it never was.