t those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difffference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difffference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase." These words, spoken by Ernst Janning in Judgment at Nuremberg, Abby Mann's drama about the war-crimes tribunals that took place in Germany in the late 1940s, reflflect horrors far greater than those we face today. Nevertheless, coming from Janning, a distinguished jurist and patriot and a man who knew better but who turned a blind eye to what was going on around him, they have a certain relevance. And they must surely echo the private thoughts of Republican mandarins who stand by while their leader ravages the institutions and tenets that keep American democracy in place. When the historians fifinally weigh in on the Trump presidency (and it's never too early to start), they will have a troubling question to answer. It's not why many good Americans, angered and disgusted by the dysfunction of Washington, were misled by Trump's mendacious rhetoric. The real question is why powerful people who (like Janning) knew better—and who now know exactly what kind of man Trump is— continue to support him and make his presidency possible. These are the same men who have in the past publicly called Trump a racist, a xenophobe, a jackass, a man of sickening sexual crudeness, and unfifit to serve as commander in chief. Trump in his characteristic way has called them things you wouldn't say about your worst enemy. In "The Enablers," on page 78, Sarah Ellison takes on six of these men—Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Reince Priebus—all of whom have the political acumen, knowledge of government, and suffiffifficient grip on reality to know fifirsthand that our president is not just in over his head but perhaps out of his mind. It would be one thing if they were surrounding him in order to stop him. But in fact they surround him in order to enable him for their own various ends. The myriad acts of malignant legislation committed while the nation is distracted by the president's woes are evidence of their own agendas. Perhaps one day Trump will cross some line that will suffiffifficiently offend their corroded sense of propriety—go too far even for them. You'd have thought we had passed that point a dozen times or more already. If that point is ever reached, and one or more of them peels offff and lets his conscience overpower his ambition, the nation will owe them scant thanks. The damage may already be done. Profifiles in Cowardice will be the title of their collective biography. Sarah Ellison has given us a fifirst draft. M arie Brenner has been writing superb profifiles for Vanity Fair since the mid-1980s—a period of time that happened to mark the conflfluence of two of New York's more public mountebanks. One of them was attorney Roy Cohn. For you younger 34 V ANIT Y F AIR vanityfair.com readers, he was a reptilian power broker with an oil slick of charm who had made his name as Senator Joe McCarthy's top henchman during the anti-Communist purges of the 1950s. The other was Donald Trump, at the time a flfleshy real-estate developer who was already polishing a reputation as a bully and a blowhard. He unabashedly embraced Cohn as a mentor, absorbing all he could at the knee of the great man. Ultimately, Cohn would be disbarred by a New York State court in 1986 for what amounted to dec ades of corrupt practices. The legal community had been woefully slow to act. Years before, I had gone to a birthday party for Cohn that was held at a baroque East Side mansion owned by pornographer Bob Guccione. I was not an invited guest—I was covering the party for Time mag

'W hat about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difffference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difffference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase." These words, spoken by Ernst Janning in Judgment at Nuremberg, Abby Mann's drama about the war-crimes tribunals that took place in Germany in the late 1940s, reflflect horrors far greater than those we face today. Nevertheless, coming from Janning, a distinguished jurist and patriot and a man who knew better but who turned a blind eye to what was going on around him, they have a certain relevance. And they must surely echo the private thoughts of Republican mandarins who stand by while their leader ravages the institutions and tenets that keep American democracy in place. When the historians fifinally weigh in on the Trump presidency (and it's never too early to start), they will have a troubling question to answer. It's not why many good Americans, angered and disgusted by the dysfunction of Washington, were misled by Trump's mendacious rhetoric. The real question is why powerful people who (like Janning) knew better—and who now know exactly what kind of man Trump is— continue to support him and make his presidency possible. These are the same men who have in the past publicly called Trump a racist, a xenophobe, a jackass, a man of sickening sexual crudeness, and unfifit to serve as commander in chief. Trump in his characteristic way has called them things you wouldn't say about your worst enemy. In "The Enablers," on page 78, Sarah Ellison takes on six of these men—Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Mike Pence, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Reince Priebus—all of whom have the political acumen, knowledge of government, and suffiffifficient grip on reality to know fifirsthand that our president is not just in over his head but perhaps out of his mind. It would be one thing if they were surrounding him in order to stop him. But in fact they surround him in order to enable him for their own various ends. The myriad acts of malignant legislation committed while the nation is distracted by the president's woes are evidence of their own agendas. Perhaps one day Trump will cross some line that will suffiffifficiently offend their corroded sense of propriety—go too far even for them. You'd have thought we had passed that point a dozen times or more already. If that point is ever reached, and one or more of them peels offff and lets his conscience overpower his ambition, the nation will owe them scant thanks. The damage may already be done. Profifiles in Cowardice will be the title of their collective biography. Sarah Ellison has given us a fifirst draft. M arie Brenner has been writing superb profifiles for Vanity Fair since the mid-1980s—a period of time that happened to mark the conflfluence of two of New York's more public mountebanks. One of them was attorney Roy Cohn. For you younger