In many ways, it’s been a good couple of years for intelligence agencies. Aided by a combination of the Russiagate scandal and Donald Trump’s disrespectful attitude toward them, the nation’s spies are enjoying a renaissance in their public standing, particularly among Democrats, a major shift from the years and decades prior.

Trump’s decision yesterday to withdraw former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance is a perfect illustration of this dynamic. Brennan was one of six former intelligence officials whose security clearances Trump threatened to revoke due to their criticisms of the president. He’s now the first that Trump has followed through on, prompting paeans to Brennan’s years of public service by establishment journalists and politicians, while Brennan has assumed the role of courageous dissident speaking truth to power (“My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.”)

Incidents like these have bolstered a canny PR campaign carried out by Brennan and two other high-profile former officials in particular: former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) head Michael Hayden, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. For two years, the trio has been ubiquitous in media coverage of Trump, doing TV appearances, interviews, and plugs for their books, criticizing Trump and insinuating that he’s a Putin asset. Big-name #Resistance liberals like Rob Reiner (“When you libel James Clapper and John Brennan you libel America,” he wrote) have cheered on these figures — sometimes literally, as when they’ve appeared on liberal talk shows to insult Trump in front of whooping crowds.