Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough and Charlie Sykes were talking about a Gerard Baker column in the Wall Street Journal.

"I think you were referencing earlier where he said, you know, Republicans really have to make a choice here. They can continue their year of magical thinking, or they can keep defending Donald Trump. And in so doing, forever alter the rule of law in America," Scarborough said.

"Let's say the same thing about my brothers and sisters that i grew up with in the evangelical church. They are now fiercely fighting for and backing a rapist according to a judge who said by the common definition of the term, Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll. That's in the court of law. That's not in -- again, the pages of some left-wing journal. And these are the same people who all collapse on their fainting couch because Bill Clinton had a relationship with an intern back when he was in the White House and said he was unfit to be president of the United States.

"A judge has said Donald Trump is a rapist, and yet they line up right behind him, just like these Republicans who are all law and order and rule of law, continuing to line up against the guy, and they're doing it in a way that's eviscerating, or they're attempting to eviscerate the rule of law, the Justice Department, the FBI in the process," he said.

"I think where we've come since 2015, what's happened to the American conservative movement, think what's happened to our political culture," Charlie Sykes said.

"It's easy to dismiss Donald Trump as this narcissistic clown, but it is hard to understate the impact that he's had on our political standards. and to your point, look, you are seeing a full-out attack, not just on the culture of facts, which we had back in 2016, but now on all of the institutions of our constitutional republic. There's great piece in the Washington Post that talks about how all the other Republican candidates are going after the courts, the system of law, the deep state, sowing distrust in any institution that might challenge or hold someone like Donald Trump accountable.

"And the willingness to accept lies, I think, has been established over the last few years, but the thing about the moment we're in right now, Donald Trump is -- you mentioned what's going to happen in the future. It is rock-solid certain that Donald Trump will continue to make the threats, will continue to make the insults. Everything that's happening now will get worse, and the Republican party and the evangelical church will go along with it. and to your larger point, this has long-term implications. Things like this, when they are broken, they are hard to put together back together."

"What Baker says in the Wall Street Journal piece, Reverend Al, is if Republicans continue this line of thinking, if they continue their support for Donald Trump, they needn't fool themselves. A second Trump administration would destroy the Department of Justice, would destroy the FBI, would destroy the federal government's rule of law, would destroy judicial independence.

"It would destroy the third branch of America's government. It would rip to shreds Madisonian democracy. They need to understand what they're doing, and perhaps they do. I'm just trying to figure out what is so important about this former reality tv host that they're willing to literally throw away Madisonian democracy to defend him," Scarborough concluded.