at me.
We laughed. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has a gruff charm. That was his way of poking fun at me when I saw him around town.
in the history of the U.S. Senate.
that he will not seek an eighth term, the senator is in the twilight of his career.
The bad news for McConnell is that despite his decades towering over Washington as a top GOP leader, he is now eclipsed by President Trump’s takeover of his party.
a racially pointed insult to McConnell’s wife. McConnell didn’t fire back.
he was “morally responsible.”
: “We have a criminal justice system in this country…”
: “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.”
.
, “One swallow does not a summer make.”
To put it another way: Despite a few good votes on bad nominees, the history books will still highlight McConnell’s power plays over the years to polarize the Senate with his hard-right ideological agenda.
McConnell can’t erase the procedural tricks to block President Obama’s judicial appointments, thwarting voters who elected a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate majority to nominate and confirm judges.
so that judicial nominees could fill a backlog of non-Supreme Court vacancies.
the Democrat’s nominee, Merrick Garland — a centrist Democrat with impeccable credentials — from even having confirmation hearings.
about not filling a seat during a presidential election year — stalling in the hopes that a Republican would win the White House and make the appointment instead.
.
Beyond the damage McConnell did by distorting the Supreme Court’s balance, he also opened the door for corporations and the rich to flood Washington with money to buy influence in Congress and on the campaign trail.
, arguing that the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act was unconstitutional because, as conservatives claimed, “money equals speech.”
less than a decade later. That ruling opened the door to unlimited, undisclosed corporate dark money to overwhelm the political system.
.
Yes, most Republicans on Capitol Hill went along with McConnell’s legislative agenda, but he set the agenda as the party’s leader.
For the history books, he will be the main player paving the way for Trump.
McConnell’s career: “He stole a Supreme Court seat from Obama, voted to acquit Trump after the insurrection and even endorsed him for president again. Thanks for nothing, Mitch. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
McConnell could pull a surprise ending to his career. If his conscience is finally catching up with him he could switch parties, become a Democrat, and endorse Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear as his Senate successor.
Republicans already hate him because Trump told them to. He literally has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Anything short of that is too little, too late.
McConnell will go down in history not as a statesman, but as the man who brought us to this perilous moment.
That’s not trashing you, senator. It’s simply stating a fact.
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