Let me start with three inconvenient observations, based on dozens of conversations around Washington over the past year:

First, people who go into the White House to have a meeting with President Donald Trump usually leave pleasantly surprised. They find that Trump is not the raving madman they expected from his tweetstorms or the media coverage.

Second, people who work in the Trump administration have wildly divergent views about their boss. Some think he is a deranged child, as Michael Wolff reported. But some think he is merely a distraction they can work around.

My impression is that the Trump administration is an unhappy place to work, but this is not an administration full of people itching to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Third, the White House is getting more professional. Imagine if Trump didn't tweet. The craziness of the past weeks would be out of the way.

It's almost as if there are two White Houses. There's the Potemkin White House, which we tend to focus on: Trump berserk in front of the TV, the lawyers working the Russian investigation and the press operation. Then there is the Invisible White House that you never hear about, which is getting more effective at managing around the distracted boss.

I sometimes wonder if the Invisible White House has learned to use the Potemkin White House to deke us while it changes the country.

I mention these inconvenient observations because the anti-Trump movement, of which I'm a proud member, seems to be getting dumber. It seems to be settling into a smug, fairy tale version of reality that filters out discordant information.

I'd like to think it's possible to be fervently anti-Trump while also not reducing everything to a fairy tale.

The anti-Trump movement suffers from insularity. Most of the people who detest Trump don't know anybody who works with him or supports him. And if they do have friends and family members who admire Trump, they've learned not to talk about this subject. So they get most of their information about Trumpism from others who also detest Trumpism, which is always a recipe for epistemic closure.

The movement also suffers from lowbrowism. The modern lowbrow ignores normal journalistic or intellectual standards. He creates a style of communication that doesn't make you think more; it makes you think and notice less.

The ultimate test of the lowbrow is whether you feel an urge to share it on social media.

In every war, nations come to resemble their enemies, so I suppose it's normal that the anti-Trump movement would come to resemble the pro-Trump movement. But it's not good.

This is a struggle over what rules we're going to play by after Trump. Are we all going to descend permanently into the Trump standard of acceptable behavior?

Or, are we going to restore the distinction between excellence and mediocrity, truth and a lie? Are we going to insist on the difference between a genuine expert and an ill-informed blow hard? Are we going to restore the distinction between those institutions like the Congressional Budget Office that speak with legitimate authority, and the propaganda mills that don't?

There's a hierarchy of excellence in every sphere. There's a huge difference between William F. Buckley and Sean Hannity, between the reporters at The New York Times and a rumor-spreader. Part of this struggle is to maintain those distinctions, not to contribute to their evisceration.

David Brooks writes for The New York Times.