Most House GOP Members Shrugged at Sedition.

Today 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting insurrection.  The rest of the Republican caucus voted against impeachment and continued their long pattern of political fellatio to Der Trumpenfuhrer and spinelessness in the face of Trump's racist, neo-Nazi and Christian extremist base.  Some reportedly are fearful for their families and/or their personal safety, yet the best way to eliminate such threats is to take out the ring leader of the insurrectionist and deplorables, namely Donald Trump.  Seemingly, none of those voting against impeachment cared a whit about their oaths of office and defending the nation against enemies, both domestic and foreign. One can only hope that history will lump them in with the Vichy French who collaborated with Hitler and his Nazis. How the Senate Republicans will vote on impeachment remains to be seen, but the odds are high that a majority will prostitute themselves to Trump and his foul base.  Should that happen, those moral Republicans - almost as rare as the now extinct Dodo bird -  who have averted their eyes to date need to flee the GOP.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's embrace of sedition.  Here are highlights:

President Trump made history on Wednesday, becoming the only president to be impeached twice. Nine Republicans found the courage to join Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in voting to impeach Trump for inciting sedition. This made Trump’s impeachment the most bipartisan in history. Perhaps this is a sign that we are inching toward unity. That said, the rather low number of Republicans willing to hold Trump accountable for his monstrous conduct tells us several things.

First, the quality of Republican members of Congress is abysmally low. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday acknowledged that “the president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” But he couldn’t support impeachment. In other words, McCarthy concedes the egregiousness of Trump’s behavior, but he cannot find the decency and honor to seek the president’s removal. McCarthy’s only discernible argument was that there would not be time to remove Trump before a new president takes office, which is laughable since Republicans control the Senate and therefore the schedule for the impeachment trial. It was a shameful display by a weak, hollow politician.

Other Republicans voting against impeachment argued that Democrats had done bad things. Or that, contrary to what Americans saw on television, the mob acted on its own. Or that impeachment would be divisive (unlike allowing sedition to go unpunished, one supposes). The moral and intellectual degeneration of the Republican Party was there for all too see.

Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who does not have the nerve or the votes to summon members back swiftly — put out a written statement that said he was open to impeachment.

Second, the stain of Trump will remain with the GOP for a good long time, given the broad support he received from House members who are still under the thumb of a demagogue and his MAGA mob. Corporations that vowed not to give money to the 147 Republicans who challenged electoral votes after the Capitol attack will be hard-pressed to lift their ban, but it will require an enormous effort on the right to primary those lawmakers.

As a result, people of good conscience who have not already done so must decamp from a party that now embraces white nationalists and excuses sedition.

Finally, the Senate will have to decide whether to stick with Trump, McCarthy and the raving House Republicans or to cling to respectability and rationality. If a large contingent of Senate Republicans stand by Trump, it will only reinforce the image of a party that countenances sedition and rejects democracy. The Senate will need to consider censure for some of its more visible pro-sedition members.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the lawmaker who gave a clenched-fist salute to the mob as it approached the Capitol, has lost the support of several corporate donors, his home state papers and even some of his law school professors. Feeling the heat, he penned a ludicrous statement claiming that he continued to pursue objections to the election — which had no basis in fact — after the siege because he would not be intimidated by the mob. But in doing so, he did the mob’s bidding. The mob sought to overturn an election — and that is precisely what he tried to do.

In short, a grim picture emerges that the Republican Party, with few exceptions, has departed from the bounds of reason, truth and democracy. If the House is representative of the party and its members as a whole, one can expect them to remain in the political wilderness for some time. There is, to the chagrin of those who support a two-party system, only one party that can be said to stand for the Constitution and objective reality.