Mitch McConnell began the process of normalizing child molestation.  It didn’t take long, either.  But then, Republicans know the drill, having been through it already when normalizing the irredeemably abnormal Donald Trump.  Put this into context, though.  Consider a partial history of Republican behavior.

• 1933  Wall Street attempts a coup d’état against Franklin Roosevelt.  
• 1952  J. Edgar Hoover pits the FBI against Democrats.  
• 1968  Richard Nixon sabotages Vietnam peace talks. 
• 1972  Nixon’s “plumbers” begin sabotaging his opponents.  
• 1980  Ronald Reagan opens his presidential campaign talking about “States’ Rights” in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a tiny site notable only for the 1964 murders of civil rights workers.  
• 1985 – 1987  Reagan facilitates the covert sale of arms to Iran in a bargain to win the release of US hostages and, with the proceeds, to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.  Both circumvent Congress.
• 1987  Reagan kills the fairness doctrine, the first step in enabling the right-wing, hate-radio monopoly to repeat itself television.  It also pays to be rich.
• 1988  Under George H. W. Bush and Lee Atwater, The National Security Political Action Committee is created as deniability for racism.
• 1993 – Present.  A new “think tank,” Citizens for a Sound Economy, is “a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.”  
• 1993 – 2001  Republicans nurture rumors about Bill Clinton and effect extended but pointless Senate investigations and an independent counsel. This is the Republican Party proclaiming its entitlement to rule and its intent to enforce that entitlement.
• 2000  George W. Bush and Karl Rove covertly allege, in the South Carolina primary, that John McCain had a black “love child” as well as mental problems.  Rove turned out to be a master of the mud and muck and worse from 1970 to 2007.  
• 2000  Bush the Younger decides that elections are too important to be left to the voters.  To short-circuit a recount in Florida, Republicans “used paid operatives” to shut it down.  Then, a Republican, Supreme Court majority said don’t even bother counting.  Many “protesters” ended up in the Bush administration.  
• 2004  War hero John Kerry, like war hero John McCain before him, is smeared with lies by the George W. Bush campaign.
• 2008 – Present.  A rumor campaign against Barack Obama says he is foreign born and a Muslim, a blatant attempt to delegitimize his presidency.
• 2009  Republicans plot a scorched-earth resistance to Obama.
• 2009 – Present.  Republicans urge their base to “take back your country,” a slogan dripping with racism against the first African-American President.
• 2010  The Republican majority on the Supreme Court gives its party the gift of unlimited funding in Citizens United.
• 2010  Republican gains at the state level are used to gerrymander safe congressional districts for themselves so blatantly that some are struck down by courts.
• 2011  A Republican splinter-group, The Tea Party, risks a government default to force President Obama’s hand, resulting in the disastrous sequestration of 2013.  
• 2012  Republicans use multiple forms of voter intimidation (including real vote fraud) against Obama.
• 2012 – Present.  Republicans use rumor campaigns and a shameless abuse of Congressional power to damage Hillary Clinton politically.
• 2013  The Republican majority on the Supreme Court strikes down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, allowing Republicans, in states they control, to disenfranchise blocks of typically Democratic voters. Republicans begin dismantling democracy with glee.
• 2016  Antonin Scalia dies in February.  Mitch McConnell and the Republicans decide to refuse to confirm a new appointment to the Court because Obama is a Democrat.
• 2016  The Republican base embraces the latest, openly racist candidate.  Some establishment Republicans take a moral stand against Trump – right up until it becomes inconvenient, at which point they embrace him.
• 2017  Purely for political power, Republicans protect an unqualified, incompetent, racist President who lies relentlessly, is borderline psychotic, and is a clear and present danger to democracy, the country, and possibly the world.  Having prevented Obama from making routine appointments for years, Republicans begin stacking the judicial system, sometimes with wildly unqualified candidates.  They try to take health care away from tens of millions of Americans.  They pass a tax bill, written in secret and passed hurriedly in the night, redistributing money from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy and to corporations while starting to shred the social safety net.

That’s quite a rap sheet: attempted coups, sabotaging peace negotiations cavalierly causing the deaths of tens of thousands, open appeals to racism, violent interference in elections, abuse of Congressional power, abuse of Judicial power, transferring the rights of individual to corporations, calls for violence against candidates and voters, the systematic disenfranchisement of American voters, taking from the poor to give to the rich, and more.

So, despite the show, of course Republicans embraced Roy Moore.  They never were going to let a little thing like child molestation stand between one of their own and the Senate. Does anyone think that being the party of choice for pussy-grabbers and pedophiles bothers them in the least?

And of course Republicans never will impeach Donald Trump.  They will bend and break every rule and every law and even our democracy to protect him from impeachment and from prosecution.  That, too, should surprise no one.

Just for reference, the constitutionally normalized expectation for Republican behavior:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3

The Congressional Oath of Office

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.