Less a defense, and more an indifference.
I'll be honest and say that modern politics has always been a game of people going too far, then retracting that overreach when caught doing it. If we suddenly cared about the "spirit of the constitution", there would be far more people being taken to court before Trump. Like with most things, Trump did a thing so that thing is the most horrible rejection of our norms, but no one is looking to stop people from holding office for trying to silence speech or rights to privacy, or undermining our elections by pushing as hard as possible to avoid identifying people when they vote, or forcing the vote to be done and counted on election day, like it has always said.
People have simply claimed too much about Trump without going after others, and I think people just don't care so long as they are able to give a single drop of charity to Trump.