The GOP, a party of fiscal restraint, individual responsibility and national defense, now exists simply to defend Trump's indefensible transgressions.
Conversely, it is up to us to understand the world that they lived in. For one, there weren't political parties in the sense that we think of them now. In The Federalist 10, James Madison frequently refers to power-seeking "factions," which he defines as, "a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion" that are represented by "different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power."
Now, as it was then, power is the only thing that matters. As we have seen over the past year, political parties are simply a tool for factions to gain power. For nearly seven decades, Donald Trump declined to join the Republican Party — but the GOP was happy to let him fly its plane even though his only qualification was wearing a suit with plastic wings pinned to it. He wanted power, and he stitched together a faction willing to give it to him.
And now that they are in power, Republicans have seen their party principles wash away. A party of fiscal restraint, individual responsibility and national defense now exists simply to defend Trump's indefensible transgressions.
In order to be a member of the Republican Party in good standing, one must now believe the real scandal isn't that the president capriciously leaked highly classified information to our Russian adversaries, but that staff told the media that it occurred. One must accept that the president firing an FBI director leading an active investigation into his campaign's connections with Russian officials is acceptable as long as Democrats once expressed displeasure with the director's actions.
Modern Republicanism now means excusing boorish behavior, defending blatant falsehoods and shrugging off ignorance that weakens America's standing in the world. It means spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on a symbolic border wall that Trump promised Mexico was going to pay for and allowing Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars so he can golf at his resort on the weekends.
But, hey, we got Neil Gorsuch!
Of course, Republicans are still accused of "partisanship" — but partisanship isn't the ultimate goal; staying in power is. And there is evidently no amount of embarrassment the GOP isn't willing to suffer to keep Trump's presidency alive. When confronted with whatever Trump's latest embarrassment is, Republican leaders assume their roles as corpuscles of ignorance in the body politic, praying the next news cycle brings an even greater distraction.
That's not to say Democrats aren't in the same predicament — it's just that they have the benefit of having lost last November. Democrats are a party, after all, that was almost hijacked by a septuagenarian socialist. The broad faction on the left that spends more time marching than reading party platforms isn't interested in the Democrats' tax plans or their diplomatic strategies; they merely want to be in charge.
Sadly, by casting aside their principles in service of the president, congressional Republicans are surrendering the one power they have to keep him in line. Madison himself envisioned the problems of a government with "nothing to check the inducements" of "an obnoxious individual." In one phrase that suggests perhaps the Founding Fathers could see into the future, Madison warned that, "Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm."
Political parties are simply the clothes that power wears. And Republicans keep defending a man wearing nothing at all, seemingly happy to show his posterior to the world.