Senate Republicans in debating the wisdom of impeaching Trump are telling us to let bygones be bygones even if the bygones are a Trump stamped violent putsch on the nation’s capital in order to disrupt a democratically constituted body – the Congress – and overturn by force a democratic and fair election. With a few exceptions, what Senate Republicans are doing now, only a few weeks from this unprecedented assault on democracy, should disqualify them from office. They are defending the indefensible as well as setting a dangerous precedent for the future. What defines the Republican Party today, what constitutes its organizing principle now and for the future, with or without Trump, is its full bore commitment to minority, autocratic, white nationalist rule.