DE-TRUMPIFICATION WILL REQUIRE FORGIVENESS:

According to the local newspaper, Tulsa World, Lankford has been "arguably more involved with Black Tulsans, and particularly the historic Greenwood District, than any statewide Republican officeholder in decades." In Congress, he is one of the few Republicans who has worked with Democratic colleagues on voting rights reform. Last year, Lankford, a Baptist minister, was critical of Trump after he cleared protesters to hold a bible up outside St John's Church, near the White House. He was one of the architects of last summer's Republican police reform bill. Immediately after the election, when the president was making unfounded claims about a rigged result, Langford said he would intervene to make sure Biden received intelligence briefings but then quickly changed his tune.

All of this made Lankford one of the more surprising names on the list of senators who initially objected to the certification of Biden's win. (The fact that Lankford faces re-election in a deepest red state in two years' time is perhaps the best, though not exculpatory, explanation.) It also makes the central claim of his apology -- that he had a "blind spot" when it comes to the racial baggage associated with claims of election fraud -- hard to believe, leading many to question his sincerity. And even if we take Senator Lankford at his word, "too little, too late" would be a perfectly reasonable objection. A more charitable response might at least give Lankford credit for at least engaging with his part in it all when many Republicans have just decided to change the subject.

But this complicated cocktail -- complicity, an underwhelming apology and a Congressional track record that points at more than just mindless partisanship -- makes Lankford an interesting test case for how the Republican Party proceeds after Trump and after last Wednesday.

The path to a healthier democracy and a sane GOP surely involves offering the likes of Lankford an off-ramp from the Trumpian madness without downplaying the seriousness of their willingness to indulge the stolen election lie. In other words, who deserves to live in political ignominy and who deserves a way back?

This is the difficult question that those interested in building a better Republicanism after Trump must grapple with. I suspect that toughness towards the President himself and the uber-MAGA contingent -- starting with a vote to convict Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial -- needs to be mixed with a more forgiving approach to the likes of Lankford. For without the Lankfords of this world, the anti-Trump contingent will have little hope of building a coalition large enough to win the battle for the future of the right that awaits.

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