Which seems more likely, that McConnell and his members are all pining for a return to the days when they lost two consecutive presidential elections but are burying this beautiful hope deep within their hearts, or that Flake is engaging in wish fulfillment here? From his current vantage point as a guy who gets paid to travel around the country lamenting the depravity of a president whose agenda he supported 81 percent of the time while in office (more frequently even than his Tea Party colleagues Rand Paul and Mike Lee) it might be difficult to understand, but the reality is that Trump is wildly popular with the GOP base and a boon for its members in both houses of Congress. If anything, I would guess that even Romney would not vote to remove Trump if his fans at The Atlantic would never learn about it.

This doesn’t mean that in personal terms they like the president who has used a party to which he has not belonged for most of his life as a vehicle for his own political ambitions without much, or indeed perhaps any, regard for its long-term fortunes. I am even willing to believe that, in the circumstances described by Flake — i.e., in their private lives, as normal people — some of them would even be willing to venture the occasional criticism of a twice-divorced serial philanderer who thinks that apostrophes are hyphens. But there is space for a pretty wide range of opinion between grumbling about someone in private and secretly wishing to light your party on fire.