GOP Has Turned The Senate Into An Auxiliary of The White House

President Trump hasn't yet been acquitted by the Senate of impeachment charges, but it is only a matter of days.

When it does so, the Republican majority led by Mitch McConnell will have succeeded in turning the Senate from the world's greatest deliberative body into nothing more than an auxiliary of the White House.

Most Republican Senators turned a blind eye to the facts and were instead governed by a combination of fealty and fear of Trump. Others like Lamar Alexander don't deny that Trump acted improperly but won't vote to convict because a) no Republican in the House voted for impeachment and b) what Trump did doesn't rise to the level of impeachment.

Alexander's first line of reasoning is a cop out. The only Republican Congressman who ever went on record as being in support of impeachment was Justin Amash last spring following the release of the Mueller Report. Within two months, Amash was out of the House Republican Conference. No House Republican was going to dare vote to impeach Trump.

His second line of reasoning leads to this question. If withholding Congressionally approved military aid to an ally unless they announce an investigation into the President's likely opponent in the next election doesn't warrant impeachment then what does? Shooting people on 5th Avenue?

When it comes right down to it, Alexander's refusal to hear John Bolton or any other additional witnesses is every bit a profile in cowardice as his GOP colleagues who refuse to acknowledge what he did.

In less half a century, Senate Republicans have gone asking, "What did the President know and when did he know it?" to asking if Iowa caucus voters will still support Joe Biden.

It was Barry Goldwater who led a contingent of Republicans to the White House to tell Richard Nixon he had to go. The only reason the current Arizona GOP Senator will go to the White House will be to receive praise from Trump for calling a CNN reporter "a liberal hack."

As long as Republicans insist the U.S. Senate be nothing more than yes men for President Trump then they are not worthy to be a majority party. Should Trump be re-elected despite impeachment, I would take some measure of comfort if Democrats were to regain control of the Senate in conjunction with another Democratic majority in the House. The road to authoritarianism would be slowed down by a speed bump.