It would be wrongheaded for the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives to remove Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post. It would also be monumentally counterproductive for the Republican Party’s political health, for it would signal that the party is a small tent rather than a big one, intolerant rather than tolerant, and more interested in inflicting punishment than in repairing the damage.

Intraparty plotters would further rip a party that must unify against a new leftist administration. They also would reinforce the image propagated by the Left of Republicans as a party of Jacobins and a failed revolution that eats its own, rather than a party of sober-minded statesmen serving the public.