Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, is presidential material. Conservative, MGM central casting looks, a great voting record. Personal record, spotless. But now he’s in the sites of the immediately former president, because Thune dared to criticize him over the attack on the Capitol, and by the Left because he voted to acquit in the recent Senate impeachment trial.

We expect such idiocy from Democrats. But when Republicans engage in cancel culture directed against Thune and others, they should check their conservative credentials at the door.

Republican John Thune accuses the GOP of engaging in cancel culture over the Senate impeachment vote.

Thune, in an interview with the AP: "If we're going to criticize the media and the left for cancel culture, we can't be doing that ourselves."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 19, 2021

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“There was a strong case made,” Thune told the Associated Press about the House impeachment managers’ arguments. “People could come to different conclusions. If we’re going to criticize the media and the left for cancel culture, we can’t be doing that ourselves.”

Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, not running in 2022, voted to convict Trump. So he’s a target. But, so what? He’s not running again and so immune to Trumpist leverage. Nevertheless, his state party went after him.

“The NCGOP agrees with the strong majority of Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that the Democrat-led attempt to impeach a former President lies outside the United States Constitution,” the state party said Monday night.

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Burr responded, “It is truly a sad day for North Carolina Republicans. My party’s leadership has chosen loyalty to one man over the core principles of the Republican Party and the founders of our great nation.” Bingo.

Senator Pat Toomey, R-PA, perhaps the most impressive conservative member of the Senate, is also facing censure in his home state. Local parties have moved against Toomey. The Westmoreland County and the Washington County Republican Party have already censured him.

“We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to do the right thing or whatever he said he’s doing,” Washington County GOP Chair Dave Ball told press. “We sent him there to represent us.”

That is one confused and ridiculous statement.  Setting aside the blithe rejection of doing the right thing, members of Congress are sent to Washington to use their judgment and intellect to decide wisely on the issues of the day. They are not robots to be programmed by inarticulate county tinhorns.

Even Ted Sorenson got this right, ghostwriting for JFK, in 1955’s “Profiles in Courage”. “The voters selected us, in short, because they had confidence in our judgment and our ability to exercise that judgment from a position where we could determine what were their own best interests, as a part of the nation’s interest. This may mean that we must on occasion lead, inform, correct and sometimes even ignore constituent opinion, if we are to exercise fully that judgment for which we were elected.”