The party’s far-right flank has been agitating to boot Cheney and Kinzinger out of the House Republican Conference for months, a push that California congressman Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, has tried to brush aside. And their formal censure is sure to stir up those efforts again.

Most House Republicans tried to ignore the actions of the party, refusing to answer questions or saying they had not read the censure resolution. Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw called it “dumb stuff,” while Tennessee congressman Mark Green lamented the distraction from “this abysmal administration’s record”.

Democrats, however, were incensed, especially at the censure resolution’s description of the Capitol attack as “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” and the ongoing legal investigations of Trump in New York and Georgia “as Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power”.

“The Republican Party is so off the deep end now that they are describing an attempted coup and a deadly insurrection as political expression,” said Democrat congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the special House committee investigating the Capitol attack.

Democrat congressman Adam Schiff, who is also on the committee, said, “Their party has degenerated into a cult to the former president, unwilling to acknowledge the truth, and I think they condemn themselves with their resolution.”

In his own defence, Kinzinger said “I have no regrets about my decision to uphold my oath of office and defend the Constitution. I will continue to focus my efforts on standing for truth and working to fight the political matrix that’s led us to where we find ourselves today.”

The resolution speaks repeatedly of party unity as the goal of censuring the two Republican house representatives, saying the party’s ability to focus on the Biden administration was being “sabotaged” by the “actions and words” of Cheney and Kinzinger that indicate “they support Democrat efforts to destroy president Trump more than they support winning back a Republican majority in 2022”.

More practically, the moves of the party in Salt Lake City will make it easier for the Republican apparatus to abandon Cheney and throw its weight and money behind her main primary challenger, Harriet Hageman.

Cheney, who faces an uphill battle in her reelection bid against a Republican Party aligned with Trump, said party leaders “have made themselves willing hostages” to Trump.

“I do not recognise those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump,” she said. “History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what.”

The censure resolution was watered down from an initial version that called directly for the House Republican Conference to “expel” Cheney and Kinzinger “without delay”. That demand was dropped. However, the language condemning the attack on “legitimate political discourse” was then added.

William Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member from New Jersey, said those changes were made “behind closed doors”. The final language was officially circulated to committee members Friday morning. He called it “cancel culture at its worst”.

“The national committee attacking Liz Cheney is distracting and counterproductive,” he said. “We should be spending our time shooting at Democrats, not Republicans.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.