McConnell’s Choice Is Emblematic of the GOP’s Rot.

The Republican Party is broken.

If Mitch McConnell were just another Republican senator, I’d say he was the eighth bravest. The seven bravest are the ones who voted to convict Donald Trump.

For weeks I’ve been saying that if you honestly believe the Constitution forbids the Senate from convicting a former president (who was impeached while in office), you’re free to do so. I think it’s a profoundly wrong and dangerous view, creating precisely the “January exception” that impeachment managers warned about. But if that’s your sincere opinion, you should be the one denouncing Trump’s actions more than anyone else. You should be full of anger, sorrow and frustration that this lamentable oversight by the founders—which doesn’t actually exist—prevents you from doing what the facts and morality warrant: convicting Trump for his hideous behavior leading up to, and during, the events of Jan. 6.

That is precisely what McConnell did Saturday, delivering a blistering and accurate denunciation of Trump’s moral, political, and, possibly criminal culpability. And while McConnell was wrong in his vote, he at least voiced the truth, something beyond the likes of those governed solely by political appetites—Sens. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio et al.