There’s at least a chance now that Senate Republicans won’t lie fully prostrate before Donald Trump for the next several years. By choosing John Thune of South Dakota as their leader on Wednesday morningwagi8, Republicans made a statement that their chamber won’t necessarily be a wholly owned subsidiary of the White House and it may occasionally assert its constitutional role as a check on executive power.

Trump didn’t make an endorsement in the leadership race, but his MAGA allies were loudly pushing Rick Scott of Florida for the job, particularly after he explicitly agreed to Trump’s demand that the Senate give up its role in choosing whether to confirm Trump’s nominations. By rejecting Scott on the first ballot and picking Thune, Republicans indicated they would not abandon the course charted by Mitch McConnell, who, though he was a fierce partisan infighter as Republican leader for the past 18 years, at least fought hard to preserve his chamber’s independence.

McConnell and Trump didn’t try to hide their contempt for each other, and that tension is likely to ease considerably with Thune, though he worked closely with McConnell. Trump will almost certainly get most of what he wants out of a Thune-led Senate, from cabinet appointments to judges to legislation; the party wants to seize on its momentum before the country gets sick of Trump and Trumpism again.

But it’s in opposing the craziest, most extreme and dangerous people or ideas that Trump will propose — and there will be many — where Thune could really make a difference. It might seem inconceivable, for example, that Trump would offer a screwball like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a Senate-confirmable job leading a health agency, but Trump has already announced that he wants Pete Hegseth to run the nation’s military. The guy’s principal qualification is pleasing Trump as a Fox News host. Would mainstream Senate Republicans approve those kinds of nominations?

The defense establishment is already aghast about Hegseth, and many red-state senators care deeply about the military’s approval. Thune might one day have to tell the White House that Hegseth doesn’t have the votes.

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