Give Donald Trump credit. By picking a fight with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly after last week’s Republican presidential debate, he skillfully changed the subject from his own terrible performance to one about a supposed biased forum in which he could play the victim. On the stage in Cleveland, he did nothing to give viewers the impression that he had the temperament or the knowledge of the issues to successfully compete in a general election let alone serve as commander-in-chief. But in employing his trademark bullying tactics as well as by making a vulgar comment about Kelly (that he later disingenuously claimed was innocent), Trump showed us that he is a master manipulator of the media. But the question to be asked about all of this is not so much whether his lead in the polls will last, but whether it’s ever going to be possible to speak or write honestly about Trump without such criticism being interpreted as a defense of the establishment or an unfair attack on voters who are fed up with business as usual in Washington? The answer is that as long as Trump is controlling the conversation, the answer may, unfortunately, be no.

The key point to understand about the debate is that you don’t complain about the moderators unless you think you lost. Instead of noticing that he had no good answers to some very legitimate questions, Trump’s fans rallied to his defense even if meant they had to swallow absurd party line that Kelly and the other Fox moderators were biased RINOs or liberal saboteurs. Such charges against that network and these particular journalists requires a conspiratorial mindset that seems all too familiar on the right these days. Had Kelly, Brett Baier, and Chris Wallace grilled Hillary Clinton on her weak points the way they did with Trump, the same people hurling abuse at Kelly would cheer her. Of course, Clinton won’t go anywhere near Fox for that very reason.

But Trump knows that the best defense is a good offense, and, rather than absorb his embarrassment, he lashed out as he has always done against anyone who dared question him. The post-debate scrum was perfect for Trump since it tapped into the anger that leads many of his supporters to support him in the first place. Part of the reason people seem to like Trump is that he does play for keeps in the sense that his only reaction to opposition is always to eviscerate it no matter the source or the issue.

For many on the right, their frustration about the inability of Republicans to stop President Obama from implementing his policies has become as great as their anger at the administration. Trying to explain that absent a 60-seat majority in the Senate, the GOP can’t even pass anything through both Houses is the sort of technical argument for which they have no patience. Trying to tell them that the Founders they claim to revere actually approved of the kind of gridlock that results from divided government is equally futile. Working within the political system is not only the constitutional path to follow; it’s the only way conservatives have to hinder the liberal project. Yet what some in the base want most is a sign that their leaders are as angry as they. And that’s where Trump, with his truculent braggadocio, comes in.

Anger seems to be the lingua franca of American politics these days. Tea Partiers rage against the ability of Obama to implement his health care law and to unilaterally change the immigration laws without Congress being able to stop him. Liberals are expressing it by backing Bernie Sanders rather than meekly going along with the coronation of Hillary Clinton. Go further to the left, and you have protest movements like Black Lives Matter and, before that, Occupy Wall Street. Listen closely to all of them and you hear that same undercurrent of dissatisfaction and impatience not just with the failure of politicians but also with politics itself.

Into that void has stepped, an intemperate man who seems suited for the times. Unencumbered by any political experience, a record or even any well thought out positions, he simply jabs away at all comers. Unlike everyone else he’s so rich and famous that nothing can constrain his fury or even force him to apologize for saying things that other people would be destroyed for uttering. Having watched so many others broken for saying impolitic things, watching someone who can do as they like is liberating. That not only explains Trump’s popularity but also why his supporters don’t back away when he says something foolish, wrong or just plain offensive. Some seem to have bought into the notion that anger gives him permission to behave indecently, as was the case with his comments to and about Kelly.

But the problem for Republicans isn’t so much the threat that Trump might actually win the nomination or even what I still think is a very good chance that he will eventually run as an independent because he isn’t capable of accepting defeat. It’s that, in the course of the debate about Trump’s suitability for the presidency, many of his supporters have come to perceive any criticism of their hero as an affront to themselves. As long as they are lashing out at what they perceive to be the establishment (a term that has become so amorphous that it now appears to include even those people and institutions like Fox that afflict the very liberal establishment conservatives oppose), they don’t seem to care about Trump’s obvious shortcomings. Worse than that, their anger causes them to embrace Trump’s incivility as a virtue even though they know, contrary to the candidate’s claims, neither ISIS nor a porous border justify behavior that is a function of his unrestrained ego rather than principle.

So let’s make something clear. Voters have every reason to be dissatisfied with the current situation. In particular, conservatives are not wrong to recall the way George W. Bush and the Republican Congressional majorities of his time spent like drunken sailors throughout much of the last decade. The GOP should be held accountable. But so should Trump. Like it or not, he’s in politics now and must answer the same tough and intrusive questions about what he has said and done as everyone else in his new profession. He should not be allowed to get away with bullying questioners or critics any more than the other Republicans.

If Trump fans think he is presidential material, I’m at a loss as to wonder why they would think that, but democracy is about choice and they are entitled to theirs. And when Republican voters ultimately choose someone else, as I think is likely, those conservatives who actually want to prevent the election of another Democrat will need to remember that Trump’s fate should not be confused with that of the conservative movement. Just as he needs to learn to stop taking the normal give and take of political debate personally, so, too, must his fans.