When Democrats impeached Trump for an unprecedented second time, 45 Republican senators voted to dismiss the case immediately so that he would not have to face trial in the Senate, even though some of them had to run for their lives on January 6. At the end of his impeachment trial, only seven out of 50 Republicans voted to convict, and not one member of the Republican leadership.

As soon as the trial concluded, Mitch McConnell delivered a reproachful speech, calling Trump “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day”. These, however, were weasel words – he indicated shortly afterwards his willingness to support the former president if he emerged as the party’s 2024 nominee.

In the immediate aftermath of January 6, Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy told colleagues he was thinking of calling Trump to tell him to resign. But he never summoned up the courage to do so, and soon after, he flew to Mar-a-Lago, where again he became Trump’s supplicant.

Fearful of alienating the MAGA faithful, and motivated always by a blind hatred of their Democrat opponents, leaders who could and should have repudiated Trump have helped in his rehabilitation.

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Even after the revelations that Trump had been informed by the Secret Service beforehand that his MAGA mob had turned up in Washington on January 6 with an arsenal of weaponry, they have remained his enablers. In response to Trump’s indictment, McCarthy instantly took aim at Alvin Bragg, the African-American prosecutor, and Democrat, claiming he had “irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our presidential election” – words which surely are more applicable to Trump, or, for that matter, Vladimir Putin.

Over the course of its 247-year history, America has seen demagogues reach the White House. It has witnessed presidents, such as Richard Nixon, with authoritarian impulses. In president Andrew Jackson, Trump’s populist soulmate, the demagogic and the authoritarian came together. However, presidents who have abused their power have been reined in, not just by the constitution, but also by members of their own party.

As the Watergate crisis reached its denouement, a delegation of senior Republicans told Nixon he had to resign. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to pack an obstructive Supreme Court with justices who would back his New Deal program, he was blocked by fellow Democrats alarmed by what they saw as a dictatorial power grab.

This safeguard, in a system based on norms as well as rules and laws, has been crucial down the ages. But in the Trump years that protection has so often been absent.

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His vice-president Mike Pence bravely defied Trump on January 6, by rejecting the ludicrous suggestion that he could unilaterally overturn the presidential election on the day that Congress certified the results. But Republican leaders should have made that abundantly clear weeks earlier. Their craven reticence allowed the “Big Lie” to metastasise into such monstrous proportions.

Trump now faces his day in court. As for his Republican backers, history will be the judge.

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