Senate Republicans are Responsible for Trump's Incitement of Insurrection

That means that they're on trial, too. No wonder they're mad.

What, me worry about the integrity of American democracy? (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

Donald Trump is the first president in American history to be twice impeached by the House of Representatives. A clear motif runs through the high crimes and misdemeanors for which the has earned himself this badge of infamy: authoritarian contempt for fair democratic elections and constitutional limits on executive power.

But wasn’t this pretty clear the first time around? Of course it was! But then why wasn’t Trump convicted by the Senate and removed from office early last year? Well, it’s pretty simple: Senate Republicans defied their oaths, sullied their offices, and failed their country. They took a huge gamble with our democracy and our lives and nearly destroyed everything. Good job, Mitch!

Now they’re grumbling and griping and fabricating ad hoc constitutional doctrine out of thin air, towering contempt for the American people and Jonathan Turley’s bottomless intellectual turpitude because they’re uncomfortably stuck serving as jurors in a second impeachment trial for enormously consequential crimes against the American people that simply would not have occurred had they done their damn jobs the first time. This is all on them and they know it.

This is a crucial but weirdly under-discussed point. I find it more than a little strange that this hasn't been repeated everywhere all the time since a Republican mob hopped up on Trump’s lies sieged the Capitol. If this scandalous fact had been more thoroughly hammered home, Senate Republicans might have felt slightly more constrained and might have been warier about going all-in on total bullshit about the unconstitutionality of convicting ex-presidents. On the other hand, the fact that their unforgiveable dereliction of duty led to a soft coup attempt and a violent attack on the United States Congress by a seditious mob is … well, that’s so sensationally disgraceful, it’s easy to imagine this coterie of traitors hunkering down even harder in their bunker of defensive lies.

Anyway, here’s the under-shouted truth again, for emphasis: the danger that something along the lines of the “Stop the Steal” insurrection could occur was always extraordinarily clear. Had Senate Republicans removed Trump from office in February of 2020, as they obviously should have, a violent mob acting at the behest of Donald Trump never would have sacked the Capitol, the House wouldn't have impeached him, downtown D.C. wouldn’t have needed to be surrounded by a military cordon, and Senate Republicans wouldn't have to had to weave through the knots of grunts in the halls of the Capitol on their way to reckon with the devastating aftermath of their disloyal negligence.

Every Senate Republican (except Mitt!) bears responsibility for this. (Photo by Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see disaster on the horizon. Back in October of 2019, when Pelosi still appeared to be waffling over whether to launch impeachment proceedings at all, I argued in the Times that it’s so clear that Trump cheats in elections, we could face a legitimacy crisis if he’s allowed to run for re-election.

If the House goes through with impeachment but the Senate acquits, Mr. Trump’s lawlessness will have been lavishly rewarded. He will take it as a signal that absolutely anything goes — especially given the Senate’s failure to act in any meaningful way on election security. Should he win, a sizable majority of the public will see it as an electoral coup and deny the validity of his claim to power. It’s easy to imagine enormous mass protests that bring Washington to a halt, dangerous indeterminacy in the continuity of government, and worse.

I was focused here on the destabilizing danger inherent in everyone on Earth, other than obstinate Republicans, knowing that Trump cheated his way to a narrow Electoral College victory. Trump basically eliminated the chance that his re-election could be seen as legitimate by cheating far in advance of the election and getting caught. If you care at all about the health of democratic institutions, that’s straight-up disqualifying. Senate Republicans knew they were taking a huge risk with our democracy by letting him off the hook to run again. I think they thought that if he won and his legitimacy (and theirs) was contested, they’d be able to write it off as partisan sour grapes. Now, this attitude doesn’t make any sense if you care about democracy, republican self-rule, and the legitimacy of political authority. But if there’s anything we know about Trump’s GOP, it’s that it believes in nothing and cares about nothing other than winning, maintaining, and wielding raw power on behalf of itself and its clients.

I wish I’d said more to emphasize that Trump would actively sow distrust in elections and try to pre-delegitimize his opponent, no matter what. It was obvious that if Senate Republicans allowed him stay in office after his “perfect phone call,” he would continue to groom his followers to regard anything but his re-election as fraudulent.

It’s not like he was hiding it. Trump lied about the results of the election he won before he set foot in the Oval Office. His attempt to extort fabricated dirt on Joe Biden from Ukraine's leader, for which he was awarded his first impeachment, should have resolved any doubts that he was willing to lie, cheat and abuse power of stay in office, beyond the reach of the law. It’s important to remember that, in this case, Trump's abuse of office served his effort to spread a wild conspiracy theory designed to discredit the Mueller investigation, cast the entire Democratic Party as a treasonous cabal bent on his destruction, and damage the electoral prospects of the man who would in fact become his general election opponent.

There should have been no doubt that unless Trump were removed from office, tens of millions of Americans would believe that the 2020 election had been rigged and that the winner was illegitimate, no matter who won. It’s hard to overstate how profoundly irresponsible it was for the GOP to choose to bring this ridiculously dangerous scenario into reality. You didn’t need a crystal ball specifically showing a violent mob bearing Trump flags storming the Capitol to understand what acquittal was risking. But Republicans didn’t care.

Every single Republican member of the House voted against impeachment and every Republican in the Senate, with the noble exception of Mitt Romney, voted to acquit. Trump's success in obstructing the Mueller investigation enhanced his sense of impunity and emboldened him. Once Senate Republicans chose to refuse to concede that he’d done anything worth taking seriously, Trump’s knew he could get away with anything. It’s not just that Trump couldn’t have attempted his autogolpe if McConnell and Co. had faithfully upheld their oaths of office, it’s that their acquittal gave him the license and elbow room he needed to see it as live possibility.

Remember that as you watch the obnoxious Republican display of grandstanding umbrage, brazen gaslighting, and aggressive self-pity about to unfold in the U.S. Senate. It’s not just Cruz and Hawley who were accessories to Trump’s crime. Except for brave Romney, they all are. That no man should be the judge of their own case is the foundation of the rule of law. But in the Senate trial, nearly half the jury bears responsibility for the crime. They are not pleased that Trump’s second impeachment has returned them to the scene of their crime, because they know that they’re guilty and they’re about to do it again.

- WW

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