On the eve of the Senate Republicans’ sham trial – rigged for the express purpose of exonerating the most lawless and dangerous president in living or dead memory – wouldn’t it be great if at least one of their members broke ranks, shamed the craven majority, and spoke up for democracy?

The floor speech could sound something like this:

“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear…

“I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges. I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution…

“As a Republican, I say to my colleagues on this side of the aisle that the Republican party faces a challenge today that is not unlike the challenge which it faced back in Lincoln’s day. The Republican party so successfully met that challenge that it emerged from the Civil War as the champion of a united nation…(But to govern today) with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to the nation….

“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny – Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear. I doubt if the Republican party could do so, simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above the national interest…

“I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification…It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

So said Margaret Chase Smith, Senate Republican from Maine, during a floor speech she delivered on June 1, 1950.

The male Senate Republicans were terrified to confront demagogic colleague Joseph McCarthy, lest he smear them as “communists” or “fellow travelers.” The sole exception was Smith. At that point in time, McCarthy (the Donald Trump of his era) had only been on the national scene for a few months – lying every day, destroying innocents’ reputations, rampaging with impunity – but Smith the sole woman in the Senate, was already fed up, not only with McCarthy but with the cowards in her party.

Smith’s early take on McCarthy – and the toadies who trolled in his wake – resonates 70 years later: “Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism.” Indeed, she said, “It is high time that we stop thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats and start thinking patriotically as Americans.”

If today’s Senate Republicans were to follow her example – she liked to say that “the right way is not always the popular and easy way” – and if they were to comport themselves as patriots, there would surely be a fair trial. Smith won history’s verdict on Joe McCarthy. History’s verdict on Trump’s servile senators – virtually all of whom are “tools” of “totalitarian techniques” – will one day be rendered. I fear to hear it.