What were they thinking?

| 6:01 pm EST January 31, 2020
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As we speak, Senate Republicans are voting to not even so much as call a single witness in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. The fatalists of the Resistance are labeling this the death of democracy, and making histrionic doomsday prognostications about how this means Trump is magically going to get away with it. But back in the real world, none of that exists, of course. What we’re really seeing is Senate Republicans making a tricky no-win calculation about how to have this blow back on them the least in the coming days and months.

The Republican Senate was never, ever going to convict and remove Donald Trump unless he became so toxically unpopular, the Republican Senators selfishly concluded that their own personal odds of reelection would be improved by ousting Trump. Instead, the Republicans made the calculation that their own careers are better off by acquitting Trump. If anyone in the Resistance thought this was ever going to come down to Republicans “growing a spine” or “not growing a spine,” that’s just not how any of this works. For the Republicans, it was always about math.

That’s just as true with trial witnesses. Senate Republicans know that one way or the other, John Bolton will soon be speaking very loudly on television about Donald Trump’s scandals and crimes. He has a book to promote, and no book author ever turns down the free promotion that comes from doing TV interviews. And no, Trump can’t magically stop Bolton’s book from coming out, no matter how loudly he and his lawyers stomp their feet. The fatalists of the Resistance are absolutely certain that Trump has a magic wand and he just waves it whenever he wants, but in the real world, nothing ever plays out this way.

So the only question here is why Senate Republicans decided that they were better off by forcing John Bolton to go on a TV talk show next week to give his “testimony” instead of simply letting him give his testimony to the Senate. Since they were going to acquit Trump either way, they probably figured they’ll take a little less heat for Bolton’s upcoming bombshells if Bolton isn’t saying it to their faces.

That’s right, get ready for Republican Senators to soon begin arguing that they’re shocked at the full extent of the revelations in John Bolton’s book, and that they can’t be held accountable for their decision to acquit Trump, because they didn’t know just how ugly Bolton’s revelations were. This won’t make any sense, but it won’t have to. It’ll just be the best cover story they can come up with, as they cross their fingers and hope that this sham trial’s negative impact on their careers isn’t a fatal one.

These people are Republicans. They never do the right thing just for its own sake. They never do the wrong thing just for its own sake, either. Concepts like “right” and “wrong” don’t exist to them, or else they wouldn’t be Republicans. They only ever do whatever they think gives them the best odds of keeping their own seat. In this instance they gambled that they’re better off by letting Bolton open the can of worms himself, than by helping him open it. Your job in 2020 is to make sure they gambled wrong.