Mitch McConnell’s Legacy
There is no denying that he was consequential.
So, this caught my eye at AL.com, Katie Britt: Mitch McConnell is ‘one of Alabama’s greatest native sons’, mostly because I was unaware that McConnell was born in Alabama. In fact, for those trivia buffs in the audience, he was born in Athens and lived in the state for about eight years before moving to Georgia.
But, that’s not what inspired a post.
Rather, it was this:
“His legacy is unparalleled in the Senate’s history and will long outlast his tenure as Leader,” Britt said.
And it got me thinking about his legacy. Objectively speaking, his lengthy tenure in the Senate (since 1985) alongside just over two decades in various leadership roles in the chamber makes him a figure of some historical significance as a general matter.
However, I would note two very specific legacies.
First, it will be impossible to write about the history of the Supreme Court without mentioning McConnell, as he orchestrated the process to deny Barack Obama the chance to appoint a replacement for Antonin Scalia, while also being key to the appointment of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement. All told the current right-wing orientation of the Court is substantially a result of McConnell’s influence over the process.
This Court has already had profound effects on public policy in the United States, as the Dobbs decision on abortion clearly underscores. The current slow roll of Trump’s immunity claims is also a consequential example of this Court’s influence. Indeed, tomes will be written about what this Court has already done, and about what it will do for decades to come.
This leads me to the second legacy of McConnell, which is also a gift that keeps on giving: his cowardice in the face of Trump’s behavior on January 6, 2021. McConnell’s choice not to back the conviction of Trump in the Senate during Trump’s second impeachment trial was, in my view, an utter failure of leadership and vision. It was a short-term calculation that could have profound long-term negative consequences for the country.
I would remind us all that McConnell knew that the 2020 election was not stolen and, moreover, knew that the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol were provoked by Trump. He publically and privately said so at the time.
For a trip down memory lane:
- McConnell’s speech on January 6th.
- Via the PBS Newshour: McConnell says Jan. 6 Capitol attack was ‘provoked’ by Trump and others in power.
- Via CNN: An incredibly damning quote from Mitch McConnell on January 6.
Yet, when he had the chance to take a moral and principled stance, which would have barred Trump from holding federal office and would have freed the Republican Party (and the American public) from a clear authoritarian-wannabe, he demurred. He was too worried about losing the Georgia run-offs (which he lost anyway) and whatever other short-to-medium-range fallout there would be to stand up and be bold.
And here we are with a non-zero chance that Trump will return to the presidency with vengeance on his mind and a clear desire to abuse power once in office.
But if Mitch McConnell had been willing to be a real leader, he could almost certainly have provided enough cover for enough House Republicans to vote to convict, remove Trump from office, and bar him from future federal office.
Instead, he gambled (and lost) on two Senate seats in Georgia, and has set us up from Trump: The Sequel.
That’s one helluva a legacy, Mitch.
A popular tactic in abortion debates, is to tell how the mother of some famous personage considered having an abortion, but fortunately for us decided against it. And thus Beethoven, Edison, Curie, or whoever lived to do great work.
Well, McConnell now fulfills that role for the pro-choice side.
What McConnell wanted was simply power. In his many years in Congress there is no legislation which bears his name. He is a man with no moral center, a man who was and is perfectly willing to assume any political position which allowed to gain and maintain his position of authority. When he first sought political office in Kentucky, he was pro choice but when he sensed the political winds were different, like a weathervane he quickly shifted to what he believed his voters wanted so he could maintain his office. His contempt for Trump was hardly concealed, but he bent over and kissed trump’s ass because it benefitted him personally. He’s an empty shell of a man who has damaged the country immeasurably.
Let’s not forget his refusal in 2016 to go along with the intel community going public about Russian interference in the 2016 election. Sort of a foundational failure. Nor should we forget everything he did was on behalf of his Kochtopus funders. The same lovely people who gifted us with the current SCOTUS.
His real legacy is a combination of power and poverty. LBJ loved power and Texas but he didn’t dream of turning America into Texas Hill Country. The Republican dream has been to transform all of America into the worst parts of Alabama out of spite for better places. To do this McConnell, to his credit, read the cards correctly regarding GOP and money and the types of billionaires with huge grievances and deep pockets who would finance this endless attack on the public good. He saw that the Kochs hated what they saw as the self-serving abilities of the Rockefellers to become defenders of the environment. And he saw that these resentments could be regurgitated up and down the ladder endlessly in America. And these resentments are what he rode and that is why we have Trump.
Our great-grandchildren will still be suffering the consequences.
Feeling confident that such books will still be allowed to be published in the decades to come, are we?
Sorry, read too many comments over at LG&M. I’ve had to confine myself to their occasional post about energy or global warming, but it still leaks through: the prevailing opinion there is that if a Republican ever wins the Oval Office again, elections are over. And tyrants hate accurate history or political science books.
I was trying to think what karma would be for Mitch McConnell. Maybe its living with knowing that so many people have contempt for him. Even many of the people on the conservative side seem to find him repulsive, probably because they know what a quisling he is.
I never realized he was divorced, and his ex-wife, Sherrill Redmon, went on to become a feminist scholar who worked with Gloria Steinem after divorcing him.
He should go down as a person who had immense power and did absolutely nothing positive with that power.
Prof. JJ: Recall what you said last Wednesday: Any replacement for McConnell will almost inevitably be worse.
That’s particularly true since any replacement will almost inevitably be a Trump loyalist. Trump himself is pushing Steve Daines.
@gVOR10: Mitch also blocked release of the report on the rise in US domestic right wing extremism and the threat it posed.
His utter and obvious hypocrisy when it came to Supreme Court nominations (and the fact that not a single Republican called him out on it) is another remarkable example of his total lack of morals or integrity.
In the end, the world is worse for that man’s life.
That is one scary picture at the head of this post.
@becca: Mitch kind of made it obvious the GOPs depend on Russian interference and RW violence and Moscow Mitch knows it.
McConnell cared only about power, and disengaged himself from any sense of ethics in his service as Republican Senate Leader.
To understand today’s Republican Party you can draw a straight line from Newt Gingrich in the House, who birthed a scorched earth approach to Republican governance, to Mitch McConnell in the Senate who is there to exercise uncompromising partisan power.
Mitch could have spared all of us this Trump candidacy and sh*tshow by getting a few more Senate Republican colleagues to vote to convict Trump, instead he condemned Trump and voted ‘No’ he let him off the hook. Completely in character, not the least bit surprising.
and …. Steve Daines? Please. Yes, it can get worse.
McConnell knows what a Trump victory in 2024 would do this country. Even now if he disavowed Trump it would matter. But he won’t because that would take integrity. I also wonder if he is compromised, how much money was steered to Kentucky when his wife was transportation secretary.
@gVOR10:
Particularly since you know McConnell, Ryan, and Pence are thinking what an asshole Trump is.
@Michael Cain: There are always European, Latin American, Asian, and African historians and political scientists…
And I will say that while I am pretty pessimistic, I am not quite as pessimistic as the LGM folks.
A legacy worse than Jesse Helms…