Impeachment will break the Republican Party.

[Nasruddin]

60. I like the way you think

It's possible you're right. I said long ago here (or somewhere else?) that Mr Trump was purely a Republican problem to solve[*]. We already had him all figured out & there was no working with him, but getting him out of office would take more than the Democratic party.

I don't really think Republicans are concerned about integrity in the sense we think. They're concerned about electability. The Republican party is currently made up of Trumpers and the old Republican tribe. The latter have their limits on how much criminality they want to be associated with. I don't know how big a number they are but I'm betting many of these legislators are unelectable if they have to rely solely on the Trumpers and the Republican tribe members flee to libertarians or other 3rd party candidates.

Asking Mr Pence for mercy is asking him to fall on his sword for all of them. He might as well but altruism is not big in Republican culture (let alone anyone else's).

I don't happen to believe impeachment has any more power to inflame the cultists than they are already, but I could be wrong and that would change the calculation.

[*]The presidential election has already shown there were a fair number of crossover votes but whether they are the margin of victory I don't know (perhaps the Dems won it without crossover help - I just don't know).