As impeachment proceedings grind on against Donald Trump, it’s fair to ask how much toxic national drama we could be spared if congressional Republicans acted like the patriots they claim to be instead of an unprincipled president’s enablers.

The problem isn’t the GOP’s belief that it wasn’t an impeachable offense for Trump to bribe Ukraine with U.S. aid to kneecap a political rival; the problem is their implausible arguments he did nothing wrong at all, impeachable or otherwise.

Many House Democrats were wary of impeaching a president a year before voters would have their say in an election.

If Republicans had followed Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney’s example and declared from the start that Trump’s Ukraine shakedown was “wrong and appalling,” they might have found agreement with Democrats on censure short of impeachment.

They could have reinforced the oversight duties of Congress as an equal branch of government and put the imperious Trump on notice that he can’t do as he pleases with impunity.

By unequivocally defending his wrongdoing, they backed Democrats into a corner in which their only choices were to impeach or accept it’s OK for a president to run foreign policy like an underworld enterprise and ignore congressional scrutiny.

After testimony from administration officials in on the discussions, it’s clear Trump and his envoy Rudy Giuliani dangled military aid and the promise of a presidential meeting to pressure Ukraine’s new leader to throw mud on Joe Biden, the Democrat Trump feared most as a threat to his reelection.

The incriminating phone call inviting Ukraine’s election interference came shortly after Trump barely wiggled off the hook in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s 2016 interference.

As damning facts came out, GOP excuses went from “no quid pro quo;” to “maybe quid pro quo, but unconsummated so it doesn’t count;” to “there’s always been quid pro quo, get used to it.”

They derided a process based mostly on rules from their own impeachment of Bill Clinton and disgracefully smeared career diplomats, military personnel and intelligence officers who bravely testified out of patriotic duty.

They had no answer for Fiona Hill, a former top Russia expert in Trump’s National Security Council, who debunked as “fiction” his conspiracy theory that 2016 election interference was by Ukraine to help Democrats and not by Russia to help Trump.

It’s difficult to understand the GOP’s bowing to Trump’s perverse need to be hailed as 100% right in all things — the loyalty standard of cult leaders and mob bosses, not presidents.

If this ends with Republicans concluding Trump shouldn’t be removed from office, that’s not necessarily a concern; voters get to decide soon enough.

But if Republicans conclude he did nothing wrong at all, it sends our country dangerously down the road of political gangsterism.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.