Turning a blind eye to another abusive move that the next Democratic administration is certain to exploit.

So intimidated is the supine Republican Congress by the president and his political base that the “conservative” party is AWOL on such conservative priorities as limited government and free markets — even as Congress forfeits its prerogatives and checks on presidential overreach.

The latest is this week’s rush to accommodate the president’s insistence that a White House staffer be installed on the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Markets Committee in time for the FOMC meeting that begins Tuesday. (As I detailed on Sunday, the president is simultaneously moving to exclude a Biden-appointed, voting member of the Fed, Lisa Cook, based on flimsy evidence and a dubious legal theory.) The objective is to stack the deck in favor of an interest-rate cut, for which the president has been agitating for months — including by threatening to fire Fed chairman Jerome Powell.

It’s possible that a rate cut is appropriate. Many well-informed analysts argue that money has been too tight and point to rising employment concerns. Others counter, however, that inflation remains stubbornly above the Fed’s 2 percent target and shows signs of rising again. (The Wall Street Journal’s editors argue that if Trump were to get the cut of 300 basis points he’s been carping for, “that would guarantee a new burst of inflation.”) Either way, though, the point of Congress’s statutory insulation of the Fed’s monetary policy role from politics (which the Supreme Court appears poised to uphold, even as it sustains the president’s constitutional power to exert control over other “independent” agencies) is that such decisions should be made by FOMC, the majority of whose members are Senate-confirmed (the rest are presidents of regional Federal Reserve Banks, not political appointees).

To be sure, there are also abundant reasons to criticize the performance of Powell as chairman. And Cook may well be unfit — an investigation of her representations to banks in connection with her private mortgages (which the Trump Justice Department is reportedly conducting) may be warranted. Nevertheless, those matters should be weighed on their own merits, not exploited as a heavy hand to influence the FOMC’s consideration of what the federal funds rate should be.

The question for Senate Republicans at the moment is the president’s attempt to place Stephen Miran, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, on the Fed’s board. Miran has stellar qualifications to fulfill both his current role and to serve at the Fed — see Andrew Stuttaford’s backgrounder on Miran, which aptly stresses his goal of a “noninflationary economy.” But no one should be able to hold both those positions at the same time, or serve on the Fed while patently beholden to the president.

The idea here is that Miran is going to fill the non-expired term of Fed governor Adriana Kugler, who retired in August. That term ends on January 31. Since the time is short, the scheme is for Miran to take a “leave of absence” from the White House and then return in February — basically, just enough time for Miran to vote as Trump directs this week and at the next FOMC meetings in October, December, and January. Obviously, if Miran were to rely on his independent judgment and deviate from his boss’s line, he would not have a White House job to come back to. This would not be a small matter in any event, but it’s especially notable now when the president’s push for rate cuts comes when there is already upward pressure on prices. (See our recent editorial, “Beware the Return of Inflation.”)

If Miran wants to be on the Fed, he should resign from the administration and join the Fed. If he wants to stay in the administration, he should decline a coterminous stint at the Fed — which he’s now poised to take even as the Trump Justice Department has assured the courts that the administration is not challenging Fed independence. (As I’ve noted, even in attempting to fire Lisa Cook, the president has been careful to claim good cause, as Congress requires, not assert authority to control the Fed and fire board members at will.)

If Obama or Biden were doing this, Senate Republicans would be apoplectic. But it’s Trump, so they’re not only mute, they’re aiding and abetting. To repeat what I observed at the start of summer, regarding the Republican Congress’s refusal to hold the president to account for his lawless refusal to enforce the TikTok divestment law (which persists to date), the next Democratic administration and Congress will aggressively impose their progressive agenda by relying on Trump-era precedents. When that happens, we can thank congressional Republicans.