Different. But same.

Don't be a simp. Many committing nefarious acts for the benefit of all is very different for an oligarchic power structure doing whatever it takes to keep a despot in power. If you see equivalency in those two examples you're hopeless.

The ends don't justify the means

These arguments are exclusively made by people who don't want to understand the ends or the means.

now we have decades of nasty and vicious precedents

George Washington attacked sovereign military contractors at night with suicide commandos on a religious holiday.

What's scary is that for the past three presidents, there have been large numbers of people that have felt uneasy and mistrustful about their own government, what they're capable of, and what they might be willing to do and try and get away with.

Nobody ever distrusted their government before.

Don't take this the wrong way, I love this country, I appreciate our government and understand that there are many decisions with no easy answers, but knowing our national history is full of dark stories since the beginning, it's understandable why a lot of people are wary and upset.

"It's all equally horrible" is how we end up finding equivalency between "private email server" and "was put in power by Putin."

Stop being a simp.