Part of why the liberal and centrist response to Donald Trump has been so maddening is that, in their haste to embrace anyone opposed to the president, they elevate figures who espouse equally alarming political visions, from Bill Kristol to Glenn Beck. An episode yesterday demonstrates the absurdity of this situation.

On Sunday, Donald Trump made yet another hostile statement about the press, tweeting that when the media “reveals internal deliberations of our government, it truly puts the lives of many, not just journalists, at risk! Very unpatriotic!” Trump went on to complain in subsequent tweets about the media’s supposedly unfair treatment of him, a rant seemingly triggered by New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger’s strong words to Trump in a private meeting.

The outburst sent the media and Twitterverse into the piques of outrage that typically follow the latest unhinged tweet from the White House. Cenk Uygur (who criticized Obama on similar grounds) called him a fascist and said the tweet represented “the first step in imprisoning journalists” and to “destroy the free press”; others compared him to former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Various outlets placed it in the long context of Trump’s anti-media rhetoric, with the Washington Post pairing its story with a video comparing Trump to dictators.