Democracy Defeated, 35–54: Eleven senators didn’t even bother to cast a vote on a commission to investigate a violent attack on their own workplace.

In the aftermath, Congress moved to impeach Trump for fomenting an insurrection. This would be democracy’s second test. Clear majorities of both houses voted in favor. The House voted 232–197 to impeach Trump, and in the Senate, a sizable majority, 57 members, voted to convict him. But convictions require two-thirds of the Senate. This is arguably wise—convicting a president should not be easy—but it did not speak well for the courage and resolve of Republican senators that only seven of them voted to convict, nor that so many excused their vote by claiming, dubiously, that a former president could not be impeached.

In failing to impeach Trump, Congress demonstrated the toothlessness of its oversight powers. This was a defeat for American democracy.

Unable to materially punish Trump, his critics asked merely that an attack on the very seat of government, their own workplace, be investigated in a serious and bipartisan way. But today, that proposition failed. The Republican Party, minus a few (Senators Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Mitt Romney, and Ben Sasse), voted to block even this meager step by refusing to vote for cloture.

David A. Graham: Don’t let them pretend this didn’t happen

A majority of senators, 54, voted for the commission, but the measure needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Only 39 senators voted against. Eleven senators didn’t bother to cast a vote. (In their defense, the outcome was all but certain, and how do you weigh a violent attack on your workplace against wanting to get out of town for a holiday weekend?)

Republicans as a whole were not willing to examine what happened on January 6. They wouldn’t step aside and allow a majority of their colleagues to do it. They wouldn’t vote to let Collins introduce a measure that would have watered down the commission. The GOP was prepared to block any and every version of an investigation.

This, too, is a defeat for democracy. Protections of minority interests are essential, but nothing about a January 6 commission represented an infringement on the rights of any minority bloc (nor, for that matter, did certifying the election or impeaching the former president). Political observers have become so inured to the topsy-turvy expectation that a supermajority is required for any moderately controversial legislation that it feels normal when popular legislation with a majority of votes in favor fails.

David A. Graham: Democrats are short on votes and long on irony

The commission itself is perhaps inconsequential. Although a bipartisan investigation would have carried more weight with the public (this is why Republicans blocked it, by their own public and private acknowledgment), other probes will continue, and besides, we already know what happened: Trump refused to accept the result of the election and provoked an insurrection to overturn it.