We have often heard Republicans claim that impeaching Trump is about overturning the 2016 election. But if Trump’s supporters truly believe that, how can they justify their new demand that Romney be expelled from the GOP? Surely that repudiation of the will of Utah voters would be just the same as that which they say Democrats are trying to do to Trump?

There’s a broader concern here: the nature of the GOP as a party. The Grand Old Party is not the Trump Old Party. It was formed 92 years before Trump was even born. To, therefore, assume that disloyalty to Trump is cause for party expulsion, as the #ExpelMitt movement necessarily assumes, is to forget history and heritage. More than that, it is to subjugate the party to the whims of one man and his family. That is a presumption at once autocratic and absurdly un-American.

By all means, passionately oppose Romney’s vote. By all means, don’t invite him to the Conservative Political Action Conference. By all means, organize a primary challenge against him in 2024. By all means, don’t vote for him ever again.

But don’t expel him from the party. He has every right to be a member.