US Senators and Their World was a seminal book published in 1960 by the late political scientist Donald R. Matthews. In it, he wroke about the “folkways,” or norms of the institution. He defined one key norm as “institutional patriotism.”
Institutional patriotism was the sense, inculcated into its members, that the Senate was the greatest legislative body, thaat it needed to be nurtured, improved and protected in its prerogatives and role. For House and Senate today, the erosion and near-disappearance of it is key
What Pat Cipollone’s letter to Congress represents is an outrageous, unlawful, unconstitutional giant middle finger to the first branch of government. The same is true of the unprecedented stonewwall defense of the indefensible president by Barr, Pompeo and all Trump apparatchiks
That nearly every House Republican and nearly every Senate Republican is saying bupkus about this assault on their fundamental role and powers is more than sad. It is tragic. Party over country, to be sure, and party over the branch in which they serve. Forget their oaths. Tragic
