On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Donald Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.

On January 6, 2021, Trump ordered thousands of his Stormtrumper followers  to “stop the steal”—by stopping the count of Electoral College votes that would make Biden President.

Tens of thousands of Stormtrumpers attacked and breached the United States Capitol. Many of the lawmakers’ offices were occupied and vandalized. One Capitol police officer was killed and more than 50 others were injured. Meanwhile, terrified legislators huddled behind locked doors.

Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol

On February 8, 2021, Trump—although no longer President—will be impeached for a second time.  

And, once again, Republican United States Senators are refusing to act on evidence that almost engulfed them—that of the January 6 mob that Trump sent to attack the United States Capitol.

A January 22 story in The Hill reports: “Only five or six Republican senators at the most seem likely to vote for impeachment, far fewer than the number needed, GOP sources say.”

And Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) claims that 45 Senate Republicans doubt the constitutionality of Trump’s impeachment trial. 

A two-thirds majority vote would be necessary for a conviction, requiring at least 17 GOP votes if every Democrat votes to convict Trump.

Among the GO’s excuses for this:

• Trump didn’t pardon any of the insurrectionists. Said one anonymous GOP Senator: “If he pardoned people who had been part of this invasion of the Capitol…that would have said, ‘These are my guys,’”
• “He’s out of office and impeachment is a remedy to remove somebody from office,” said another Republican Senator.
• If Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to preside, and the chair is instead occupied by Vice President Kamala Harris or Senate President Pro Tempore Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont.), the process will appear like a partisan exercise.
• “It’s freedom of speech!” Said Senator Rand Paul: “Are we going to put every politician in jail—are we going to impeach every politician who has used the words ‘fight’ figuratively in a speech? Shame!”

In answer to these excuses:

• It doesn’t matter that Trump didn’t pardon any of the seditionists. His lying tweets brought them to Washington, and his fiery, lie-studded rhetoric launched the attack.
• If a retired Senator or Supreme Court Justice was found to have violated the law, s/he could still be tried—so long as the statute hadn’t expired. The President should not be held above the law.
• Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has said he doesn’t want to preside over Trump’s second impeachment trial. So what? The Constitution dictates: “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” He should be required to live up to his assigned duty—or resign his position.
• The “freedom of speech” defense ignores a fundamental truth: Even the First Amendment doesn’t allow speech that incites deadly violence. When Trump proclaimed “Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong” his supporters—many of whom had come with firearms, scaling devices and twist-ties for taking hostages—knew exactly what he wanted them to do.

* * * * * * * * * *

So why have Republicans almost unanimously stood by Donald Trump despite his having sent a mob to attack the Capitol—and threaten their own safety?

During the six-hour siege, they feared for their lives. But now they fear they will lose their powerful positions—and the privileges that go with them—to Trump’s angry supporters at the next election.

For them, that counts far more than protecting the country from a ruthless tyrant who nearly destroyed America’s most cherished democratic institutions:

• A free press.
• An apolitical Justice Department.
• The peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another.

In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:

“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims. Germany will rule the world, our enemies will be our slaves….”

Like Hitler, Trump offered his Republican voters and Congressional allies intoxicating dreams: “I will enrich all of you. And I will humiliate and destroy those Americans you most hate.”

And, again like Hitler, his audience had always possessed those desires. Trump offered them nothing new. But as a lifelong opportunist, he realized that he could use those desires to catapult himself into a position of supreme power.

He despised his followers—both as voters and Congressional allies—for they were merely the instruments of his will. 

In 1960, the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko, published “Conversation With an American Writer”—a stinging indictment of the cowardly opportunists who had supported the brutal tyranny of Joseph Stalin: 

I was never courageous.

I simply felt it unbecoming to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.

Too many Republicans know all-too-well how it feels to stoop to the cowardice of their colleagues for a transitory goal.