Reading that article made me think of similar scenarios I've found myself in over the years. I temped once for an architect who was in the not-so-early stages of alzheimers or some similar mental deterioration (he was the owner and founder of the company). He'd have me do a massive, tedious, hours-long task, then the next day make me do it again because he forgot I'd already done it, and refused to believe me when I reminded him, so I'd end up doing the same tasks two or three times each.
The entire office was desperate to keep him from doing serious damage. After a month of temping, I was offered a full-time position, but I wanted no part of that mess, so I moved on. When I left, the staff and particularly the other architects were in talks with the company lawyer about how best to handle the problem, because dude had no intention of retiring, but their own licenses were in jepardy if they knowingly let him continue the way he was. The good thing, though, is that they WERE taking concrete action to get him out.
I also worked for many years with a coworker who was downright toxic, and in that scenario, we acted similarly to the person in the op-ed piece, that is, we complained about him regularly to the boss, but we also covered for his screwups (and passive-aggressive BS), because we didn't want the clients to be adversly affected, and we cared about the company itself. The long-term result was a net negative. Because we put ourselves in a position to act as a buffer between this idiot and the consequences of his actions, the boss never had to deal with said consequences, or even really see how dreadful the guy truly was (I had a standing agreement with our younger female employees that they would never have to be alone in this man's presence. If the day's assignments panned out that way, I'd either join them or trade places - he was THAT bad). As a result, we were stuck dealing with his lazy, stupid, mean-spirited, sexually-harassing, generally creepy presence for YEARS.
I believe the op-ed writer genuinely feels there's no other choice but to become a buffer, because the alternative is to let bad things happen that will hurt innocent people, but the result will be the same. By smoothing over the worst elements of Trump's actions, they're just making things worse, because let's face it, he's not going to get any better at presidenting. They're just prolonging the pain, and even more people will get hurt in the long run.