The mob's shrieks in the Capitol siege stay with me. That's where the Republican Party is now, at their mercy. The mob roams the building still, at the heart of our plagued democracy.

Republicans in Congress who aided and abetted the outrage are profiles in cowardice. That makes 150 of them, but we'll single out the prize-winners. They dress in red ties and suits, mostly, and look clean-cut. But they answer to the same master as the mob.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House and Senate Republican leaders, pandered to former President Donald Trump for years. Little did they mind his hate talk and lawless schemes. McConnell merrily stocked the federal judiciary like a fishpond. Jocular McCarthy loved being in the fraternity surrounding the president.

Since I witnessed the Capitol crime scene, it's clear McConnell and McCarthy were appalled — at first — by the violent tens of thousands sent by Trump to overturn the election. They each laid the blame at his door.

"The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president," McConnell said in a rare moment of truth. He had taken six weeks to say Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

For once, the leaders stood up to the ogre in the Oval.

Then a sea change: Republican righteous indignation faded in the mists of a bleak midwinter.

McConnell and McCarthy could have led principled opposition to Trump in their caucuses. They failed at a perilous point in American democracy. Spectacularly.

They are prize-winning profiles in cowardice forever in history. The sound of their silence is deafening. McCarthy proved the most craven coward of all, going to Mar-a-Lago to appease Trump.

What does McCarthy have to fear? Going back to Bakersfield, California, his hometown? Or the hostile freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-QAnon-Ga., threatening the House at the barrel of a gun?

At the least, McCarthy should defend decency by removing the raving Trump defender from her committees before Democrats do. Even McConnell denounced her "loony lies" as a "cancer" on the party.

As for McConnell, he could have atoned by reaching out to retiring Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., to start building a coalition of 17 Republican senators to seal conviction in Trump's upcoming trial. Fifty Democrats need 67 votes to convict Trump.

In the ransacked Capitol, Burr declared Trump "bears responsibility by promoting the unfounded conspiracy theories."

Senate Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Ben Sasse of Nebraska may have joined that coalition.

But Trump, some say, "built the party back up" out of the wilderness. He cuts a fearsome figure. Out of office, impeached twice and facing a Senate trial next week, he still inspires fear from Republicans, who quail at his tweets of wrath.

Fear not. The Don tweets no more. The man in Mar-a-Lago exile can't evict 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach, but he'll try. Oh, he's fuming at the woman who dared defy him, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. She gets a little red badge of courage.

Actually, Trump led the Republican party into the wilderness. They lost the White House, the Senate and the House under his watch. They no longer govern the country, save for the Supreme Court stranglehold.

In electoral politics, Trump lost the popular vote twice. After inciting the insurrection — and the impeachment charge — polls suggest most Americans see him as a scourge.

Republican leaders admit outgoing Trump helped the party lose the two Georgia Senate seats that decided control of the Senate. The runoff was on Jan. 5, the day before the mob stormed the Capitol.

McConnell hates Trump for the scoundrel he is. He tried to avoid the incendiary Republican challenge to the Electoral College count on Jan. 6. He's not a leader of the mob. McCarthy is leading the well-dressed one.

In the brash young guard of Senate Republicans, Ivy Leaguers Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, played to the Trump riot by challenging the election count. Along with Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., they're Southern sour without the charm. The four make McConnell's lack of moral courage seem like a warmup act.

Brace for more storms coming.

Jamie Stiehm may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To read her weekly column and find out more about Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.