"Campaigns matter" is a mantra long heeded by the Star Tribune Editorial Board. We wish elected officials, especially those in a position to know better, would do the same. That's why it was so profoundly disappointing (albeit not surprising) that Minnesota's Republican congressional delegation offered a lockstep endorsement of former President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Never mind that there's a dynamic race with viable, conservative alternatives to the chaotic, divisive front-runner. Or that their candidate of choice faces four indictments and 91 criminal charges. Or that he is looking to settle old scores, promising in stump speeches that "I am your retribution."

The four GOP representatives were led by House Majority Whip and third-ranking Republican Tom Emmer of the Sixth District, who included in a statement posted to X this sentence: "Democrats have made clear they will use every tool in their arsenal to try and keep Joe Biden and his failed policies in power."

Talk about projection. It was Trump, after all, who used every tool to try to preserve power, including trying to subvert the Constitution and whipping up a MAGA mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol and threatened to kill some U.S. lawmakers — Emmer's colleagues — as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.

Since then, the unrepentant ex-president has lied, loudly, about the disgrace and embraced a message that has led Republicans to be "more sympathetic to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attacks than they were in 2021," according to a Washington Post poll released Tuesday. And in another troubling development, a Post poll published on Thursday found that 44% of Trump voters believe the FBI instigated the Jan. 6 attack.

The Minnesota GOPers in Congress certainly seem to be absolving Trump of responsibility, unlike the handful of their colleagues (tragically, almost all now ousted), like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, true conservatives who put country above party.

The character they displayed seems absent in Emmer, who proclaimed he was "proud to endorse" Trump even though he had ample reason to endorse an alternative after the former president derailed his bid to become House speaker by calling Emmer a "globalist RINO" (Republican in name only). Writing on Truth Social at the time, Trump said Emmer was "totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters. I believe he has now learned his lesson, because he is saying that he is Pro-Trump all the way, but who can ever be sure?"

Actually, Wednesday's endorsement confirmed that Emmer and his Republican congressional colleagues from Minnesota have kowtowed "all the way."

And while they may have, in Trump's words, "learned their lesson," it's the wrong one.