There are all kinds of businesses, some warm and fuzzy and others that are hard-nosed and unemotional. Selling flowers is a business that carries a lot of sentiment as its product fits so many different occasions. Politics is a hard-knuckled business that has winners and losers and sometimes can be very cruel.

I have met quite a few people who have given a lifetime of service to political causes and candidates and in the end they have been cast aside. There is no better example of political meanness than the career of former President Donald Trump. While he has helped a handful of candidates move up the political ladder, he has also left behind a trail of broken bodies and spirits.

The first case in point is his former attorney Michael Cohen. I can think of no bigger fool helping a client than poor Michael Cohen. There are reels and reels of photos of Cohen standing up for Trump at public events. Lawyers are often called upon to help their clients clean up some headache or in the case of Mr. Trump, some kind of mess.

I can’t think of a dumber action than Cohen’s efforts to protect his client’s alleged affairs with a woman named Stormy Daniels. When the 2016 presidential election was approaching and it was clear that Mr. Trump was considering a run for the highest office, someone had to step in and prevent the Daniels matter from becoming a scandal.

So Cohen takes money from a home equity loan and uses it to write the checks that make the Daniels matter disappear for a time. Cohen mishandles the matter on his tax returns and gets indicted and sent to jail. He loses his law license and suffers all of the other indignities that come with being a felon. A good friend, grateful for years of loyalty, would have stepped in to help the Cohen family, but Mr. Trump was nowhere to be found.

Regardless of your politics, there was nothing more cruel than the events that swallowed many in the crowd that rampaged through the Capitol on Jan. 6. Countless numbers of people have appeared on television stating that they considered themselves “summoned by Mr. Trump to come to Washington” before entering the halls of Congress. When brought into the courts, most of them made that statement.

There is no doubt that quite a few of the people who tried to sack the House and Senate, screaming for the scalps of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, came to Washington for the express purpose of physically overthrowing the government and stopping the certification of the 2020 election. Film after film of the rampage shows groups carrying flags and signs expressing their support for Mr. Trump.

When the FBI and the police came for them and put them in jail, Mr. Trump was nowhere to be found. There are some stories circulating that Trump paid for a few bail bonds and some legal expenses for those arrested, but the vast majority suffered enormous financial loss and disgrace. That’s another example of misplaced loyalty.

The latest group of people dedicated to the Trump cause are the 18 co-defendants recently indicted in the State of Georgia. Some were dumb enough to go along with the plot to send fake Trump electors to the Jan. 6 vote certification. They signed affidavits stating that they believed Trump was the winner in Georgia and even met in the state capitol to swear their oath to Trump.

The most foolish of the indicted group was attorney Rudy Giuliani. As the president’s lawyer, he traveled around the country claiming the election was stolen, which was thrown out of court in 62 jurisdictions. Stuck with $3 million in legal fees, Giuliani begged Trump to for major help with his bills and got a few crumbs.

There are countless other stories of Trump supporters cast by the wayside, with their lives shattered. There are so many sins that diminish the public’s respect for politicians. But one of the greatest ones is treating human beings as something fungible and of no value, once they have been fully used.