Oath breakers

On their first day, members of the house and senate take near identical oaths.

Members of the house:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Members of the senate:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

But do they mean it?

We now have a mad President with no respect for the rule of law or even the everyday norms of simple human decency. One man can be explained in many ways (for instance, he may be a Russian agent, or perhaps he is just batshit insane). It is much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, harder to explain the inaction of republicans in congress.

Why does the republican congress do nothing? What is in it for them to enable his every insane impulse, to applaud every degradation of the country? They took an oath when they joined the congress, every second of every day they are violating their oath and ignoring their sworn duty. They have discarded all pretence of checks and balances and become the cheering section for the mad President. What, exactly, is going through their minds? I'd really like to know.

If you are a republican member of congress reading this now, I'm pleading with you: Take the time to write out an honest analysis of why you are supporting and enabling Donald Trump. You don't have to publish it if you don't want to. Leave it to be opened after your death if you want. It will be invaluable someday to the future generations trying to put the shards of America back together to know what the mental state was of the people who enabled and applauded the destruction. Perhaps we can avoid a repetition.

Another possible advantage of trying to put your motives on paper is that you might find that the attempt leads you to realize there isn't any justification you can make. Perhaps you can heal yourself by conducting the exercise of trying to express your reasons.

Theories

The simplest theory I have about why republicans in congress are doing that voodoo they do is that they just hate America and want to watch it swirl down the toilet. It certainly explains all the known facts.

Another theory in the same vein: All republican members of congress had their brains sucked out and replaced with pure evil from the 8th dimension.

Maybe Vladimir Putin has pee-pee tapes for the entire republican congress and not just the President?

A scary theory: They don't care about their chances in the midterm elections because they know Trump is planning on canceling the elections and inviting the Russian army in to keep the peace.

The scariest theory: They deliberately want to lose. They've decided that trying to govern is too much work, so they are fucking up the country so badly that it will take decades to recover. They'll take a nice vacation while the democrats scramble to fix things, then in a few years, they'll run for office again, blaming all the problems that still exist on democrats and counting on voters having no memory and democrats being incapable of countering republican lies.

My imagination runs dry at this point. I can't think of any other theories that make any sense and fit all the facts.