We witnessed a criminal act in the middle of a sham trial in the chamber of the United States Senate last week. Fifty-one foolish, utterly discreditable Republicans voted not hear from witnesses, not to see crucial documents, not make any attempt to hear the truth. They turned a deaf ear to vital evidence in the now non-impeachment, non-trial of the criminal in-chief Donald Trump.

This is the first time in our nation’s history that an impeachment trial has not had witnesses. The very first time in what is, most likely, the most perilous impeachment trial in our history. The Republican senators ignored 75 percent of Americans who called for further evidence. Contemptable.

And for those 51 Republicans, where any adjectives or descriptors of their reprehensible behavior would fall short, we are only now left to witness their slow demise in public life. They will live forever with a scarlet letter. They acted short-term and ignored the long-term implications of their actions. They will be left to the dust bins of history. For each of them, there will never me a monument cast in their like. A federal building with their name emblazoned. There will be no lying-in state in the U.S. Capitol. They have wiped a clean slate with a rag of dirt that will smudge their names for the rest of their lives.

The House managers, and the Speaker, on the other hand, will be afforded all that should be lavished on their bravery, their pursuit of justice and their fight in the face of so many lies, distortions, and intimidation. They will, as the future unfolds, be written as the bold soldiers who fought valiantly for our republic.

Slowly, surely, steadily and shamefully the truth about the glaring crimes committed by the president will seep out. Books, media interviews, public speeches, in-depth articles, podcasts, and any manner of communique will release, unearth, and deconstruct the sordid tale of bribery, threats and cover-up of the president, his staff, his minions, and his lackeys in Congress. The stories will validate all that we heard and then some. They will cast darkness in all corners of our government.

We will hear the truths about how an ambassador’s life and livelihood were threatened and destroyed. How a country, susceptible to Russian aggression was put in danger because of a self-serving political investigation. Requests for non-existent information of crimes that the Bidens, Joe and Hunter, did not do. We will hear about the yes men in the White House. The mob in and around Ukraine — not Ukrainians but an American throng. The injustice of the Justice Department. An attorney general who is anything but an attorney, a general, or any manner of titles that portend integrity. The tactlessness of a State Department. And, what will be most galling will be the accomplices in both the House and the Senate. Mitch McConnell, Devin Nunes, and Lindsay Graham wanted this entire episode over quickly for a reason because they too had something to hide. We will see that the crimes transcended and infected each branch of our government.

All of these revelations will represent a further destruction of our fragile democracy and reveal an ever more corruptible government. The drip, drip, drip of devasting details about this expansive lawless enterprise will be an embarrassment to our country, putting us one step closer to a tyranny, and three steps farther away from our allies and other democracies around the world.

We have lost the credibility to stand for freedom and anti-corruption. We have isolated ourselves from all we have fought for, our past heroism and stature be damned. We will now be loathed and called out for our failing and faltering democracy, or whatever it might be called by other governments around the world. The United States as we have known it for the last 250 years, is ceasing to exist. We enter a period of time that will call into question the very constitution that has now been ripped, torn, and scorched by the desperate defense of the president and the senators who acquiesced in that desperation.

Those Republican senators futures are as dim as a back alley, because their crimes, done in the light of day, put them in a place that is dark and lonely. Just like those legislatures in the Nixon and Clinton impeachment days who have passed, and who left a legacy of bravery or capitulation, and whose death notices included whether they stood up or sat down. The 51 dishonorable Republicans will be remembered for one single vote. Their obituaries will start with how they catered and withered to a bullying autocrat who changed the trajectory of our country for the worse. Their vote will be written about as the lead story and in a way that humiliates their legacy, which was destroyed by saying no to one Senate resolution.

So, while the media exposes all of the illicit behavior in the months ahead, it will be left to the American people to take on the burden of trying to sort out the muddled mess left by the president and the Republicans in Congress. Be prepared for stunning revelations ahead. Be prepared for more shrillness from the president and those corrosive Republicans. More denials, more lies, more backstabbing, more treachery, more deceit.

And be prepared to stand in line in November, for however long it takes, to vote these sycophants out of office.