Lonely are the brave

Conservatives used to believe this, just as they used to believe that the branches of government were coequal; that political dirty tricks should never be normalized; that embattled allies must not be enlisted in such tricks; that, as Judge Laurence Silberman once said, “The most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends”; that innocence isn’t established by the failure to get away with the intended crime; and that acquittal isn’t vindication. Among the things now permanently lost to Republicans amid their supposed victory in the impeachment saga is the hope of having a leg to stand on when, in the fullness of time, a future Democratic president behaves toward them exactly the way Trump behaved last year.

Also lost: that once deeply held American ideal that the person who says “no” when everyone else says “yes” (or vice versa) doesn’t defy democracy, but ennobles it. The right-wing vituperations descending on Romney, directed by the president and amplified through his media minions, are no better than the left’s cancel-culture warriors, seeking to wreck the lives of anyone who falls short of expectations or doesn’t toe the ideological line.