President Donald Trump this week backed down from a fight with his own Republican Party, giving last-minute approval to a pandemic stimulus package he had vowed to veto. And now, with the help of those same Republicans, he's likely about to face the first veto override of his presidency, regarding the annual defense spending bill. Surprise of surprises, it turns out the GOP actually can stand up to this destructive president when its back is to the wall.

Trump's threat to veto the $900 billion stimulus package endangered unemployment payments and other crucially needed pandemic aid. Some may credit Trump's reasoning — he wanted to send $2,000 stimulus checks to most Americans, instead of the $600 checks that are in the bill — but the way he went about it was a textbook case of Trumpian chaos. Trump waited until his own administration had negotiated the $600 figure, and then waited some more while Congress passed it with strong bipartisan support, and only then did he raise his objections. Then he just threw down a take-it-or-leave-it gauntlet, demanding the $2,000 level and vowing a veto if he didn't get it.

That's not how it works, as Trump would know if he'd spent the last four years learning anything about the government he ostensibly leads. He finally backed down and signed the bill late Sunday, under intense pressure from Republican members of Congress.

Trump's earlier veto of the $740 billion defense bill was a cynical stunt that brazenly politicized national security. Trump wanted the bill to strip liability protections from social media companies like Twitter (which has had the audacity to call out Trump's false claims about election fraud) even though the defense bill has nothing to do with social media. He also opposed the bill's requirement that Confederate names be removed from military installations, a long-overdue reform. So for the sake of coddling racist traitors and punishing social-media fact-checkers, Trump decided to endanger military funding and pay raises for the troops.

This put the traditionally pro-military GOP in a bind. The House on Monday voted 322-87 to override Trump's veto — a rebellion that included 109 Republicans. And guess what? Nothing exploded, the sky didn't fall, the Earth didn't open up and swallow them. The Republican-led Senate is expected to approve the veto override on Wednesday.

It could be that it's just finally gotten through to the GOP that Trump is, in fact, a lame-duck president. But no one should assume that means he's finished sowing chaos and undermining democracy. A president who has shown again and again his willingness to hurt America for his own self-obsessed purposes could yet do a lot of damage in the three weeks he has left in office. The nation may have to again call on this 11th-hour courage among Republicans before this is over.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH