The only job I can think of that is on the same level as that of the White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is being a janitor assigned to a middle school boy’s bathroom, and there is only one job worse than that one: being a Republican in the Senate. When many of them signed up for this gig, painting over obscenities written on the wall – also known as doing damage control for President Donald Trump – was notably not a part of the job description. Party politics are relatively simple when concerned primarily with policy, but the degradation of the separation of powers seems to have transcended to a level where in order to keep your electorate, you need to defend Trump’s every absurd offhand comment.

It would be confusing for anyone besides our current president to attack a politician with soaring popularity numbers, who is a decorated war hero and a dedicated public servant after their death. However, Trump’s narcissism has established a recognizable pattern. His rhetorical style relies on the premise that he “tells it like it is.” He acts as an authoritarian strongman, and those in his base frequently cite his “toughness” and “honesty” as his greatest strengths. But this is not borne of deep integrity and respect for the voice of the people, even if he masquerades it as such. His outbursts and tirades are the spawn of poking his fragile, orange ego with an appropriately pointy stick and letting it scab a bit until that irresistible urge to scratch at it comes. It then festers until he makes a babbling set of ragingly incoherent and buffoonish remarks that satisfy him, similarly to the feeling I imagine my dog gets when she pees on the floor.

It is hard to imagine a reason why statements like “I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” “I didn’t get thank you,” or “But I wasn’t a big fan of John McCain” would be justified or necessary. Last week, the president even referred to McCain as being “last in his class” at the Naval Academy. The man is dead and was laid in state among only 32 other people in the history of our country, and Trump still felt the need to disparage him. It is extraordinarily disrespectful, and there can be no other reason why he went to the lengths that he did other than because McCain is viewed as a symbol of everything that Trump is not: respected, patriotic, and passionate. It is a fundamental insecurity. What other reason does Trump have to revive this feud than to soothe his insecurity? It is like combing over a bald spot with three strands of hair. When the sun hits it, everyone else can sure as hell see it.

It is faux maturity to claim that Republicans must work with Trump because he is the leader of their party. It is the sort of poisonous politics usually delegated to the movies. We have a separation of powers in our government for a reason, and if the Republican members of Congress will simply follow whatever Trump says for the sake of appealing to Trump’s base, then the Republicans in the Senate have become an arm of the president. If this is the case, our separation of powers is compromised and we need to start asking ourselves questions about what is more important: capturing the high ideals of our nation or winning the next election. Trump himself is a cowardly, insecure, cornered little man. The words of those in support of him are the true venom, as they allow dialogue to descend to a level of immaturity below that of playground bullying. The Republican Party is faced with a choice: to retain their integrity or to become the party of Trump. If they choose the latter, they might as well change their mascot from an elephant to a rat.