Senate Republicans have the opportunity to not only convict Donald Trump of “incitement of insurrection,” but also punish him with a ban on ever running for political office again, so he could never again be president or the standard-bearer of the Republican Party. If you are a Republican who believes Trump is a figurative cancer on the GOP, then this is your best chance to remove the tumor.
The problem, as with any operation, is that the procedure comes with risk. For one thing, the surgeon might not remove all of the cancerous growth. What if Trump and Trumpism have already spread too widely inside the party? Even if he can’t run again, he can still function as a de facto party boss, installing loyalists in the party hierarchy, endorsing candidates, encouraging primary challenges, and running family members for office up to and including the presidency.