News Journal: Why won’t good Republicans stand up to Trump?

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Edmund Burke, often called the philosophical founder of modern conservatism, wrote that nearly 250 years ago. Few quotes have better stood the test of time.
None, I think, better sums up what we are witnessing in our country today.
It is important to stress that Burke was not blaming evil men for an evil result. He was squarely laying the blame for the triumph of evil on good men — today, good men and women — who most certainly recognized evil but for whatever reason did nothing to stop it from happening.
“Good men doing nothing.” It is hard to watch so many Republican senators turn a blind eye to even the most outrageous and dangerous actions of President Trump.
It is especially hard for me, because I worked with many of them for years during my time in the Senate. I consider most of them principled, good men and women. Some are still friends.
That makes it difficult for me to say what I think has become obvious. Nearly all of them have abdicated their responsibilities under the constitution.
One of the great ideas of our founders was the separation of powers in the federal government between the President, Congress and the Supreme Court. Our system works best when the three branches provide checks and balances on each other.
Unfortunately, it is hard to find a single meaningful example of when this Congress has provided a check on this President.
Take just three major issues on which Republicans, until now, have always been in near unanimous agreement.
Promoting free trade has been virtually a litmus test for Republicans for more than 70 years. I listened to a lot of speeches about trade in the Senate, and not once did I hear any Republican have anything good to say about a trade war. Not even a trade war that “would be easy to win.”
Forty-eight Republican senators voted for the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2015, and pilloried the Democrats who opposed it. Yet there was hardly any reaction when the Trump administration withdrew from TPP.
The big winner when that happened was China, which now looks like a more attractive trading partner to TPP-signing nations.
Remember balanced budgets? Did any Republican in your memory ever stop declaring that the federal government simply had to have a balanced budget?
Until last December, that is. Suddenly, fiscal responsibility became a thing of the past when they voted unanimously for the Trump tax cuts. They did so knowing that the Bipartisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the bill proved it created at least a $1.5 trillion deficit.
That has now grown to $2 trillion, but I haven’t heard any regrets from my Republican friends.
Most important of all, perhaps, is the absolute U-turn Republicans have made on our relationship with Russia. The antipathy to the Soviet Union and Russia within the Republican Party hadn’t changed in all the years since World War II. Until Donald Trump came along.
How can anyone explain the lack of action on the part of Republican senators to counter President Trump’s bizarre love affair with President Putin? All of our intelligence agencies and national security leaders of both parties have agreed that Russia meddled in our 2016 election. But there have been no real efforts in the Congress to address the interference and prevent it from happening in the future.
It is also strange that there has been no concrete action in response to the President’s recent trip to Europe, where he denigrated our historic allies and warmly praised Russia.
Clearly I am appalled with where this President is taking the country. But what concerns me even more is that Republican senators, who I know to be good people, are not acting on their constitutional responsibilities.
Our founders were brilliant in building checks and balances into our federal government. That this Congress is providing no checks on the President should be of real concern to all Americans.

Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. senator from Delaware.