Senate Republicans hoping to shove President Trump out of the political arena are touting the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, leaving Americans who disagree with the left on key issues nostalgic for the combative MAGA leader who had been shedding support prior to the vote.

Time tends to soften our memories, brushing over flaws with fresh coats of paint. As the British actor John Cleese said of his landmark sitcom “Fawlty Towers,” when viewers think back on the show, their minds edit out jokes that didn’t work, leaving them with a rosy recollection.

Mr. Trump, however, never gave Americans a chance to miss him, almost as if he would cease to exist if he weren’t in headlines. It’s a maxim he professed in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” where he wrote, “The funny thing is that even a critical story, which may be hurtful personally, can be very valuable to your business.”

Conventional wisdom holds that politics doesn’t work that way, something lost on the former president who can always point to his historic win — the only candidate to never serve in the military or government to win the White House — as proof that he can strike out the other team.

As President George W. Bush’s senior advisor, Karl Rove, said of Mr. Trump’s appeal, “In 2016, people wanted somebody to throw a brick through a plate-glass window.” The omnibus has Republicans missing the former president’s arm, softening the memory of his term when each new dawn brought fresh piles of broken shards.

Eighteen Senate Republicans supported the omnibus, rendering the choice of Americans to give their party control of the House — and therefore the power of the purse in the face of inflationary spending — a pointless exercise.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declared he’s “pretty proud” of the performance, saying Republicans under his leadership “were able to achieve through this Omnibus spending bill essentially all of our priorities.”

Delivering “assistance for Ukrainians,” he said, “is the number one priority … according to most Republicans,” when — whatever one thinks of helping that far-away nation resist invasion — inflation, illegal migration, crime, and other priorities loom far larger in Americans’ day-to-day lives.

The Republican base — those disposed to supporting Mr. Trump in particular — can’t be spun out of seeing the omnibus as a betrayal, or of recognizing its priorities as those of Mr. Biden and the Democrats, who celebrated it as a victory.

Mr. McConnell’s fellow Kentucky Republican, Senator Paul, called the $1.7 trillion in spending the “greatest threat to our national security.” A Republican congressman from Arizona, Paul Gosar, tweeted, “I have news for @LeaderMcConnell: America has 99 problems but the Ukraine ain’t one.”

The vote handed Mr. Trump the same target, and he dusted off his fastball. In a Truth Social video, he called it a “monstrosity,” “ludicrous,” and a “disaster for our country.” Returning to his signature issue, he said, “This bill will make the border worse.”

The omnibus vote reasserted the paradigm of Republican compliance best embodied by their minority leader in the House before the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, Robert Michel of Illinois, who told TIME how he greeted freshman members.

“Every day I wake up,” he recalled telling them, “I look in the mirror, and I say to myself, ‘Today you’re going to be a loser.’ … But don’t let it bother you. You’ll get used to it.” Mr. Trump, of course, sees the world as binary, divided into winners and losers.

He promised supporters often that they’d “get tired of winning” under his leadership. After he failed to get reelected, and his candidates lost by bunches in the midterms, Republicans were looking to yank him off the mound until the omnibus breathed new life into his campaign.

After the vote, Mr. McConnell told NBC News, “I think the former president’s political clout has diminished.” He may be proven correct, but if Mr. Trump defies expectations again, it will be in large part because of the omnibus, and establishment Republicans will spend another four years sweeping up broken glass.