Donald Trump’s Thursday press conference was so meandering and deranged that it brought the basic ebb and flow of all politics to a halt, as power brokers across Washington, including Republicans on Capitol Hill, stopped what they were doing to watch along in amazement.

Trump raged against illegal leaks, but deemed news about those leaks “fake.” He told small but obvious lies (that he’d won the presidency with the biggest electoral college margin since Ronald Reagan) and potentially enormous but as-yet unprovable ones (that, to his knowledge, his aides weren’t in contact with Russian intelligence during the campaign). He suggested the rise in anti-Semitic threats since his election were false flag operations undertaken by his political enemies. And he asked April Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, to convene a meeting between him and the Congressional Black Caucus based on the assumption that she—an African American—and members of the CBC were fast friends.

But as surreal as the spectacle was, it wasn’t disturbing enough to shake Republicans out of their determined obliviousness to the chaos of the Trump administration. We’ve seen the pattern repeat itself so many times, it’s grown tiresome: Trump becomes unhinged; Republicans pretend they didn’t see it, or say they won’t comment on every offhanded Trump comment, or just chuckle about his “unconventional” presidency; and everyone moves on.

Their ostrich-like reflexes have been a running joke in politics for months now. But in this case, a great deal of reporting indicates Republicans awoke to the frightening implications of letting an unstable man have free reign over the government, yet remained committed to the course they’ve chosen nevertheless:

FWIW, Republicans on the Hill were panicked behind the scenes by Trump's performance today. — Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 16, 2017

Spoke briefly with Mitch McConnell just now on his way back in to Capitol. Said he had not seen @POTUS news conference, couldn't comment — Kasie Hunt (@kasie) February 16, 2017

As a witness to this, McConnell appeared relieved to be able to say he had not seen the Trump presser! https://t.co/w4ijyzSLoq — Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) February 16, 2017

It is natural for the party that controls Congress to step up investigations in periods of divided government, and for the pace of oversight to slow when the government becomes unified. This tendency has become more pronounced in recent years as the parties have become more ideologically polarized. The opposition party will always find fault in the way the party in control is using or not using its power. But the unexpected, and abrupt, transition between completely divided and completely unified government has revealed a fatal weakness in our systems of political checks, which Republicans are placing under great strain.

