Yesterday a mischievous colleague rolled a grenade into the Dispatch Slack channel. “RFK Jr. vs. Trump general election. Who is the worse choice?” he asked.

The blast wave from the detonation sent the entire staff reeling.

Such choices normally wouldn’t be cause for debate. Given the prospect of a second Trump term and all that would entail or four years of Candidate X, you swallow hard and you take your chances with Candidate X. I’ve written numerous times, in fact, about grudgingly reconciling myself to an illiberal rival whose every utterance aims to prove that he’d be a more ruthless authoritarian in office than Trump would. If I can make peace with voting for Ron DeSantis in the name of Moving On, I can make peace with voting for anyone.

Trump or Candidate X? The answer is Candidate X. Every time.