Republicans are too comfortable with losing

The Republicans who voted to condemn Trump's national emergency did so, mostly, from good intentions.

Democrats have abused national emergencies and it is a significant transfer of power from the Congress to the President so it's not irrational that Republicans oppose it.

However unless they make it impossible for a President to declare a national emergency all they're doing is unilaterally disarming Trump since we all know that the left has no problem with Democrats declaring national emergencies.

We must remember that Democrat politicians are dishonest fascists and they can't be trusted to apply the same rules to themselves as to Republicans.

I learned that lesson when I was young. During the Nixon affair I told my dad that we Republicans should stand against Nixon so that when a future Democrat President did something wrong the Democrats would have to stand against him.

My dad and I knew that JFK and LBJ had done much worse things than what Nixon was accused of, illegally wiretapping Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and releasing embarrassing information to the press for example, so we both felt that the attack on Nixon was an example of a double standard.  Neither of us condoned Nixon's actions but we both realized that if there was one set of rules for Democrats and another for Republicans the Democrats hold on power would continue to grow.

But my dad being more worldly wise knew that Democrats wouldn't do the right thing in the future.

When Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath to avoid losing a #MeToo lawsuit for sexually assaulting a government employee when he was governor of Arkansas the Democrats proved my dad to be right.

Instead of convicting Clinton, which would have made Al Gore president and probably ensured that Gore would have won in 2000, they said that it was ok to lie under oath so long as you're a Democrat.

That's why taking a principled stand against a bad thing, the Presidents ability to declare national emergencies without consulting Congress, is wrong unless that stand ends that bad thing for both parties.

But Republicans have lived in the swamp for so long that they're more concerned about impressions than about winning.