Senate Republicans had their practice run for this moment in 2018 with the Supreme Court hearings for now justice Brett Kavanaugh, a serial liar whose debt of $200,000 to $600,000 magically disappeared before his nomination, with a credible accusation of sexual assault to his name, and who set fire to the appearance of judicial equanimity in his public job interview to put on an enraged, tearful partisan rant, raving about “revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups” and warning that “what goes around comes around.” In that round, now retired senator Jeff Flake played the tortured moralist before voting “yes” to move Kavanaugh out of the Senate Judiciary committee to the full Senate floor. And Murkowski paired her vote of “present” with Republican Montana senator Steve Daines, who was missing the vote for his daughter’s wedding, so they would cancel each other out. Collins of pro-choice Maine voted “yes” after calling Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony “sincere, painful, and compelling” and claiming that Kavanaugh assured her he would not overturn Roe v. Wade, sending her once high approval rate (she won with 68 percent of the vote in 2014) tumbling. It was the tightest Supreme Court confirmation vote in more than 130 years: 50-48-1. Now, without even the promise of an anti-abortion Supreme Court justice, the GOP was set to hand Trump his cover-up—after a few years of effectively putting down intraparty criticism (remember, when Louisiana senator LIndsey Graham called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” who “doesn’t represent my party’s values” four long years ago?), the GOP was now groomed for submission to Trump’s deviancy.
Romney and Collins, who is particularly vulnerable with the Senate’s highest disapproval rating of 52 percent in Maine, have both said that they would vote for witnesses—meaningless votes with senate majority leader having locked up the rest of GOP votes, safely speeding along what is essentially a sham trial. Murkowski will announce her vote today, but it won’t make a difference without another Republican senator to join those three. Trump may likely have his Senate impeachment trial wrapped up in a speedy two weeks, with zero witnesses testifying.
Chief political correspondent for Politico Tim Alberta explained the votes of retiring Republicans, like Flake and Alexander. “I’ve spent a LOT of time with retired (and retiring) congressional Rs since 2016. Most feel zero sense of liberation to bash Trump on the way out. If anything, they’re even more cowed & cautious, fearing that being out of favor w: POTUS (and his party) limits their earning power,” he tweeted, continuing: “Numerous retiring Rs talk warily—sometimes fearfully—about the ‘cult’ of Trump supporters back home. They worry about harassment of their families, loss of standing in local communities, estranged relationships.”
There is no amount of popular will that would force Republicans to buck Trump: 75 percent of Americans support calling witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial, according to Quinnipiac. But the basics of fairness no longer apply to the Republican party, which has turned itself over to Trump’s cult. In Federalist No. 47, James Madison warned of authoritarian demagogues like Trump: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one or a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” With the impeachment process, the American constitution has a mechanism to safeguard the republic against an elected demagogue. But without a bare minimum of elected senators willing to carry out a fair trial in respect to the constitution, the rails are off. What we are witnessing, this week, is the irreparable damage of the senate, making way for the undermining of free and fair elections too. There are no electoral cures for one of the two major American political parties, with some 40 percent of voters, completely in the rapture of an aspiring autocrat. So America’s march away from democracy advances onward.
