What I want for Trump is much simpler than impeachment: I want to see his approval rating fall to the low twenties, then to the teens. The low teens. I want to see him repudiated by America, and especially by the nearly half of voting Americans who thought, despite all evidence to the contrary, that he would be a suitable president.

Is that too much to ask? I know there’s an intransigent twelve percent, those authoritarian followers who would rather have a savior than a democracy. I’ve spoken to some of them and it’s very much like talking to a born-again Christian. Nothing you say means anything because they have faith, the strongest defense against rational thought and evidence. These are the people who will stick with Trump to the very end, and after he dies will deify him. To them, every count against Trump is either a conspiracy or fake news. Every ugly, vile, contemptible statement or act is justified by the far greater sins of his opponents.

The twelve percent will always be with us, but what about the others, those who simply went along with a phenomenon? I want to defend them, but I find it difficult. It’s been clear for years what kind of person Trump is. If nothing else, his reality TV show should have shown those voters that Donald Trump is an autocrat at heart. Yes, it was a TV show and he was a character, but the character was presented as him, the real person, and it was not done with irony. Those voters should have known from Trump’s birther obsession that he is racist and dishonest. From the Access Hollywood tape they should have known that he is misogynistic and predatory. His thousands of legal entanglements should have convinced them that he is corrupt. And his entire campaign should have demonstrated that he is pathologically narcissistic. Pathologically. In that he may truly be unable to put the good of the country before his own comfort and wellbeing. In that the good of the country may never even be part of the calculus.

What I want is for those voters to do some soul searching, to ask themselves why they chose that to be the leader and face of our nation. And I want them to regret their choice. Because ultimately they are more important than him. They will decide whether Trump will be seen as an ugly aberration or as the beginning of the end of American democracy. I don’t think that is an overstatement. It has happened in other countries by this very path, and the last year has shown that we are not exceptional.

Image: Modified Reuters photo accompanying Business Insider article “NBC fires Donald Trump after he calls Mexicans rapists and drug runners,” by Maxwell Tani, Jun. 29, 2015. From http://www.businessinsider.com/nbc-donald-trump-2015-6.