The pattern is confirmed once again

 Examples abound of Donald  Trump's insistence on unwavering fealty. A cursory scroll of the Donald Trump category here at LITD yields a plethora going back to 2015.

However, I'm not sure there's ever been an instance so blatant as this (italics mine):

The day after President Trump fired FBI boss James Comey, the president phoned John Kelly, who was then secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, and offered him Comey's job, the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael Schmidt reports in his forthcoming book, "Donald Trump v. The United States."

Driving the news: "But the president added something else — if he became FBI director, Trump told him, Kelly needed to be loyal to him, and only him."

• "Kelly immediately realized the problem with Trump's request for loyalty, and he pushed back on the president's demand," Schmidt writes. 
• "Kelly said that he would be loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law, but he refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump."

Why it matters: This previously unreported conversation sheds additional light on the president's mindset when he fired Comey. Special counsel Robert Mueller never learned of this information because the president's lawyers limited the scope of his team's two-hour interview with Kelly.

• "In addition to illustrating how Trump viewed the role and independence of senior officials who work for him, the president's demand for loyalty tracked with Comey's experience with Trump," Schmidt writes.

Behind the scenes: Schmidt reports that "throughout Kelly's time working directly with Trump, Kelly was repeatedly struck by how Trump failed to understand how those who worked for him — like Kelly and other top former generals — had interest in being loyal not to him, but to the institutions of American democracy."

• "Kelly has told others that Trump wanted to behave like an authoritarian and repeatedly had to be restrained and told what he could and could not legally do."
• "Aside from questions of the law, Kelly has told others that one of the most difficult tasks he faced with Trump was trying to stop him from pulling out of NATO — a move that Trump has repeatedly threatened but never made good on, which would have been a seismic breach of American alliances and an extraordinary gift to Putin."

Quote of the book: "Kelly has said that having to say no to Trump was like 'French kissing a chainsaw.'"

Notice how anyone who defends Donald Trump, as in claiming that his virtues outweigh his shortcomings, and cite judicial appointments and deregulation to substantiate the case, cannot refute facts to the contrary - specifically, the statements of this who have worked directly for him, such as the above-discussed Kelly, H.R. McMaster, John Bolton, and Miles Taylor. The number goes up considerably when one expands the bounds to those who served in various departments and agencies during Trump's administration, such as Alexander Vindman and Fiona Hill. 

I'm trying to fathom the mindset of anyone who would be okay with this. And people who pull that binary-choice stuff are okay with it, whether they'd admit it or not.