Why Bill Cassidy broke up with Republicans in the Senate and supported Trump’s trial

“We are looking for solutions,” said Mr. Young, who until recently was chairman of the Republican campaign arm of the Senate and is eager to return to politics.

Mr. Schatz, who is friends with some of these senators, put a finer point on their motivation: “If I am going to suffer during the Trump era, then I might as well enact laws.”

In Louisiana, however, the completely Trumpified Republican Party is waiting for continued loyalty to the former president.

Mr Cassidy was immediately criticized for his vote and comments on Tuesday.

“I got a lot of calls this afternoon from Republicans in Louisiana who think @SenBillCassidy did a ‘terrible job’ today,” Blake Miguez, the Republican leader of the State House, written on twitter, redirecting Mr. Cassidy’s criticism to Mr. Trump’s lawyers. “I understand their frustrations and I agree with them in their disappointment.”

Even a fellow member of the Louisiana congressional delegation, Rep. Mike Johnson, weighed in. “A lot of people back home are calling me about this right now,” noted Mr. Johnson, a Republican, who said he was “surprised” by Mr. Cassidy’s gesture.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been.

As Stephanie Grace, the Times-Picayune’s longtime political columnist in New Orleans, wrote in a December article anticipating Mr. Cassidy’s change, it “ has long been part of bipartisan efforts to resolve issues. , although his solutions probably go too far for some Republicans and stop far from what many Democrats want.

Mr. Cassidy, a former Democrat like Mr. Kennedy and many Southern Republicans their age, has long been far from dogmatic about health care, a view he formed while working in charity hospitals of his condition. This has always been more than a little ironic for Louisiana political insiders, given that in 2014 he toppled Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, thanks to the Tory attacks on former President Barack Obama and the affordable care law. (Ms. Landrieu said of Mr. Cassidy on Wednesday: “A lot of people in Louisiana are proud of him, including me.”)