IF YOU'RE NOT WITH US, YOU'RE WITH THE TERRORISTS.

President George Bush, the younger, offered the leaders of other countries that binary choice shortly after the September 2001 terror raid on the east coast.  No doubt there were doubters at the time, perhaps even among the Purveyors of Expert Opinion, who could raise a number of objections, including those along the lines of there being people sympathetic with some of the aims of militant Islam yet willing to help root out the most dangerous militants, who would be put in a bad place with such talk, because they'd not be fully with the "us" being set up.

So it often is with binary choices.  But a few weeks after suggesting that a Warren presidency would be just another Technocratic Failure, David Brooks (formerly of the late Weekly Standard but more recently given to rating presidential hopefuls on a sartorial basis) goes straight into George W. Bush rhetoric.

This is a memo for the politically homeless. It’s a memo to those of us who could never support Donald Trump but think the Bernie-Squad-Warren Democratic Party is sprinting too far left. It’s a memo built around the following question: If the general election campaign turns out to be Trump vs. Warren, what the heck are we supposed to do?

If you live in a state that's likely to go for one of the majors, a third-party vote is a possibility, nicht wahr? If you live in a battleground state, voting for what you want and not getting it might be better than going along with the lesser of two evils.

But if you want to keep on being a face, rather than a heel, on Meet the Press, you've got to peddle the false binary.

And yet, if it comes to Trump vs. Warren in a general election, the only plausible choice is to support Warren. Over the past month Donald Trump has given us fresh reminders of the unique and exceptional ways he corrupts American life. You’re either part of removing that corruption or you are not. When your nation’s political system is in danger, staying home and not voting is not a responsible option.

Politics is downstream from morality and culture. Warren represents a policy wrong turn, in my view, but policies can be argued about and reversed. Trump represents a much more important and fundamental threat — to the norms, values, standards and soul of this country.

Hang on, if politics is downstream, what has already changed in morality or culture that made Donald Trump possible, let alone plausible?  Mr Brooks ducks that, suggesting all the blame is with Our President.

In their book “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that authoritarians undermine democracy in several ways. They reject the democratic rules of the game, the unwritten norms we rely upon to make the political system work. They deny the legitimacy of their political opponents, using extreme language to deny them standing as co-citizens. They tolerate or even encourage violence, threatening to take legal action against critics in rival parties.

There's enough of that going around, from enough corners, that maybe the presidency isn't where the healing will begin.  Particularly when, as USA Today columnist Michael Smith notes, you don't insult your way to the presidency. "Progressives have long denounced America as hopelessly retrograde and racist. Naturally, they’re talking about everyone except themselves."  He concludes, "No one deliberately votes to be despised."  Mr Brooks has spent too much time on Paradise Drive, apparently, and in that bubble despising deplorables is de rigueur.  Fine, let him be mugged again by reality.