The votes are in. By a tally of 60-38, the Senate voted to end debate on the final version of financial reform legislation, A final vote on the Dodd-Frank bill that emerged from the conference committee reconciling the House and Senate versions of the proposed law later today is a mere formality. The President will then sign it and the bill will become the law of the land.

It will be years before we can evaluate whether the bill is a success or not. Perhaps the most optimistic way to view it is as merely a first step towards real reform. But any further progress will be slow, especially if the GOP makes significant gains in the House and Senate this November. Liberals may not like the Dodd-Frank bill, but the vast majority of Senate Republicans simply despise it.

Understand that the Republican Party – whether controlled by traditional American conservatives, which it is not, or nutball chickenhawks – is 100% beholden to the most reactionary Wall Street ideologues.

The Democrats who think that the bill won’t prevent another crisis believe it is too weak. Any improvements that would have made the bill stronger would have been even more vociferously opposed by Republicans. McConnell’s complaint about 2300 pages of new regulations skips merrily over the reason why new rules are necessary — because the country just went through the worst financial crisis in three generations.

The current crop of Senate Republicans are sticking to the same old story line they’ve been pushing since the 1970s: Regulation is bad. Their awesome pigheadedness demonstrates a remarkable effort to be consistent in the face of all evidence provided by actual reality. The best thing about the passage of bank reform is that these troglodytes failed to stop it.