As President Donald Trump tramples the Constitution, vandalizes the federal government and trashes our vital international alliances, the reaction from leading Republicans is: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

They should be ashamed of themselves, because they know better. Ultimately, we all will pay the price for their cowardice.

Take Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), for example, a physician whose sharp and specific questioning at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing illuminated Kennedy’s woeful unfitness to be secretary of health and human services. Beyond the fact that Kennedy is an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, Cassidy showed that the nominee couldn’t even keep straight the difference between Medicare and Medicaid. Yet when it was time to decide whether to send Kennedy’s nomination to the full Senate for confirmation, Cassidy voted yes.

Or take Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a decorated Army veteran who served in Iraq. During her time in the Senate, Ernst has fought fiercely on behalf of women in the military, with a special emphasis on revealing — and ending — the sexual harassment that many servicewomen face. Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was a Fox News talking head who had faced accusations of sexual misconduct, and was on record as saying that women should not serve in combat roles. (Hegseth denied the misconduct allegations.) Yet he was confirmed — with Ernst voting yes.

Or take Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), a former Marine Corps captain who served as an intelligence officer. Young had tough questions for Tulsi Gabbard, the president’s nominee to be director of national intelligence. Gabbard has often endorsed the views of adversaries such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bashar al-Assad of Syria; and Young was especially critical of her opinion that Edward Snowden was a whistleblower and not a traitor. Yet Young announced this week that when Gabbard’s nomination comes to the Senate floor, he will vote yes.

None of those nominees, mind you, has anything resembling the experience necessary to do those jobs; their thin résumés alone should have disqualified them. But GOP senators are afraid that doing what is right for the country — rejecting Trump’s unacceptable choices — would be very wrong for their own political careers.

Cassidy and Ernst are up for reelection in 2026, Young in 2028. Each of them knows that to provide the vote that sinks one of Dear Leader Trump’s unqualified nominees would be to invite a primary challenge from the MAGA far right. The opponent would likely have Trump’s backing and a brimming campaign war chest.

There is nothing subtle about this threat. Last weekend, Trump’s moneybags enforcer, Elon Musk, posted on X that Young was a “deep state puppet.” A few hours later, after he and Young had a conversation, Musk deleted that post and replaced it with another predicting that Young “will be a great ally.” A couple of days later, Young announced his support of Gabbard.

It doesn’t matter whether Musk explicitly demanded that Young get in line. He didn’t have to.

Pressure on Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) to overlook his serious reservations about Hegseth was even more intense, as it appeared Hegseth’s nomination was on the brink of failure. Tillis is also up for reelection in 2026. Even if he survived a primary challenge from the far right, he would probably have to embrace MAGA policy positions that could make it hard for him to win the general election in a purplish state.

The GOP’s failure goes far beyond Senate confirmations. With Trump’s blessing, the unelected and unaccountable Musk is trying to decimate and ultimately destroy the nonpartisan civil service, without a peep of protest from Republicans. Foreign aid programs that long enjoyed bipartisan support have been axed — and only Democrats complain. Trump seizes powers that the Constitution clearly gives to Congress, not the president — and Republicans in Congress pretend not to notice.

Rather than push back, leaders of Trump’s party lavish him with North Korean-style praise. I’m confident that if the top Republicans in Congress were meeting with Trump and the president accidentally spilled Diet Coke on his red necktie, they would all promptly spill Diet Coke on their red neckties, too.

I base this prediction on how they reacted to Trump’s pronouncement about somehow moving all the Palestinians out of Gaza so that the United States could develop the land into a luxury beach resort. As the leaders of neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have said in no uncertain terms, the idea — or hallucination — is pure lunacy.

But Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) called Trump’s nonsensical proposal “a bold, decisive move.” Anyone who expects the GOP to protect our democratic system is dreaming.

Eugene Robinson is a Washington Post columnist.