Yesterday as part of my political podcast world I listened to The Dispatchwhich is part of the conservative but not pro-Trump continuum. I listen to mainstream news and political discusses from both the right and the left in part because I am not going to judge any faction by what their opponents say but rather what I hear from them myself. One of the topics of the Podcast raised by writer David French was on the desirability of the election removing Trump from office but without serious damage to the Republican office holders below the level of President. French seems concerned with ‘collective’ punishment being unfairly handed to the GOP at large.

“Collective’ punishment conjures up impressions of innocent member of a community being unjustly punished for the actions of a minority of the person who by mere happenstance are also member of the community.

That is not what has happened with Trump and the Republican Party.

First off, Trump did not fall out of the sky into the position of Leader of the GOP. He was the party’s leading choice from the moment he entered the race. The GOP had spent decades preparing a political ecosystem where someone of Trump character would thrive. They are Doctor Frankenstein and he is their monster; the responsibility is theirs.

Next, the Republican Office holders with a clear view of the man’s corruption and incompetence did not thing to limit his damage to our nation. Satisfied with tax cuts and judges and terrified of the base that they themselves had cultivated they stood by, abandoning their duty, their oaths, and their honor as they turned a blind eye to his maleficence. The culminated in, at their hands and their hands alone, the cowardice of his acquittal.

Faced with Trump corruption, criminality, and incompetence the Senate republicans turned their backs on the United States of America, pushed their fingers into the ears, squeezed their eyes shut and desperately wished for it all to just go away. The result of this abdication is the death of tens of thousands of Americans.

Had the Senate removed Trump as their clearly needed to it we would but have faced a pandemic with an incompetent, fragile ego, narcissistic failed businessman and reality television star as President. While people can have their issue with Vice President Pence, we would have stood a much better shot at a competent response to the crisis and that would have saved lives. Thousands of lives.

Of course, I am not saying that the senate knew the pandemic was rising. But they knew, we all knew, Trump was incapable of rising to a crisis and for the US President a crisis is always on the horizon.

It is not ‘collective punishment’ to hold them accountable for their inaction. An 18-year-old infantry man who through cowardice gets his unit killed and wounded would not be excepted from the consequences of his failure and neither should his elected officials be excused simply because they may advance a policy you desire. They are not being held accountable for Trump’s actions but for their own. The GOP cannot be an honorable party if it is comprised of dishonorable members.