The True Legacy of Mitch McConnell

Jonathan Martin’s recent Politico story on McConnell is unmistakably suffused with the Senate Minority Leader's regret.

We know now well the caliber of man that Mitch McConnell is. He is of the same caliber as Ted Cruz, who, when faced with Trump attacking his spouse in the public arena, said nothing. Senate Republican Man, ladies and gentlemen of the jury — Senate Republican Man. Afeared of the tentacles of the Trump army; worried about making bank in ten years time on the Republican lecture circuit. And so both men remained silent instead of loving and cherishing, according to God’s holy ordinance.

BEHOLD: A superlative example of manliness

I wrote at the end of July of “The Three Fs,” as to why the Republican Presidential field won’t full-on attack Trump or really tear his ass up. Futurity; Fondness and, of course, Fear. But Mitch McConnell is not former Senator Jeff Flake, nor is he a Republican Presidential candidate in ‘24. He does not have decades of “Futurity” ahead of him, as his freezing up at the GOP leadership presser made crystal clear a few weeks ago. Mitch McConnell is 81 years old. He has more existential geography behind him than he has stretching ahead …

The second F is Fondness. To wit: Most Republicans don’t want to take the car keys away from Grampa Trump in a way that injures his ego. And while we are on the subject, there is little Fondness between Trump and McConnell. They were never close — personally or ideologically — but McConnell’s strategic turning against Trump after the insurrection (and failure to finish the job) was when their civil working relationship ended fer realsies. Since then, each has used elections to cast shade upon the other, like two jousters meeting every other November in order to cross lances. But McConnell did not finish the job when he had the chance to eliminate Trump as a Presidential candidate once and for all, which was a fatal error. It is extraordinarily dangerous to leave a shameless enemy wounded, but still standing. And now, Trump is using McConnell’s “freeze up” as a rallying cry for his replacement. Charmed, I’m sure.

The final F is, of course, FEAR. And that explains so much of McConnell’s lack of a killer instinct with regards to Trump. McConnell is a strategist, a fixer, a big(ish) brain; Trump is shameless, guttural and instinctual. It’s not even a contest. Further, McConnell has no true base, except the confidence of his Caucus because of his legislative skills.

McConnell could not get elected out of anywhere other than Kentucky. He is not charming; he is not charismatic. But he knows the rules of the Senate backwards and forwards. Plays the game at a very high level. Just ask Merrick Garland. And because McConnell has no base, his role in the new Republican reality is to get things done for the people in power, which means the Trumpist-isolationsists, those who follow Trump’s every whimsy as natural law. Because Trump is the law. Like the Supreme Court, which he did for him (and them), by “outmaneuvering” Democrats, with no thanks. McConnell serves entirely at their pleasure, in fine, sort of like a house slave, which can’t be a comfortable fit for a traditional Reagan Republican conservative. McConnell’s ”masters” care little for Edmund Burke, or Shakespeare, for that matter. They think Leo Strauss is a denim jeans company.

Historians of the future will register deep opprobrium, even abject horror, at the relative inaction of Senate Republicans after Trump lost the 2020 election and mounted public objections to leaving office. Then was the perfect time to cut the cord and mete out a right and proper banishment from power after Trump’s insidious coup attempt. A week after the January 6th insurrection, while the country was still awakening from COVID, McConnell huffed and puffed and mock-charged … but it all came to naught. Again, McConnell was gripped by Fear and did not — could not — land his lance squarely on Trump’s breastplate.

As William Falk explained in The Week:

A disgusted Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, said, "There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day." But out of fear of the MAGA base, McConnell, Graham and most other Senate Republicans voted to acquit Trump. By letting him off the hook, the Senate also passed on the chance — expressly authorized by the Constitution — to bar Trump from ever again holding public office. McConnell suggested that the "criminal justice system" should hold Trump accountable. Privately, he told Republicans, "Let's just ignore him."

And how did that go, Senate Republican Man? There is a reason McConnell is the longest serving Senate leader. He is an exceedingly skilled Legislator with a legislative personality. Trump is a Sargasso Sea of resentment, wrath, rage and lust.

It is impossible to discuss the Senate real legacy of Mitch McConnell without mentioning his party’s dramatic underperformance in the midterm elections of 2022. The Dobbs decision — enacted by a Supreme Court largely of McConnell’s Machiavellian making — and the ubiquity of Trump factored largely in the cresting and the falling of the so-called “red wave.” Or, to be more accurate, the red wave that wasn’t.

(above: via Nicholas Grossman)

Still, McConnell has no regrets. At least publicly that’s what he says. It reminds me of the Proust Questionnaire in Vanity Fair. Every celebrity there always answers “None” to the question of “What is your greatest regret?” Because, of course, that is how they want to be perceived as by their peers. Regretless libertarian ubermensches, all.

But it is pretty clear that McConnell has profound regrets. How could he not, being human? Jonathan Martin’s recent Politico magazine story on McConnell is suffused with The Senate Republican Man’s regrets, if you read closely. There is the valedictory air of the piece in general. It is all about legacy, or, more accurately, managing the perception of Senate Majority Leader’s legacy. Because that is all that he leaves behind. McConnell gained Supreme Court seats for his party by violating governing norms, and then all credit all went to Trump. And for this “service” to his party, the Trumpists are already beginning to him from Republican history, in an as humiliating a process as possible. Because Trump, unlike his opponents, has no shame and no compunction in finishing off his political enemies. Trump, a close nighttime reader of Nazi propaganda, bends and distorts reality to his purposes. So McConnell is looking for another political legacy for the ages, one that he thinks will outlast the Trump zeitgeist. From Politico:

“This is the defining, final battle of his career, keeping the party away from this new flirtation with isolationism,” said Scott Jennings, one of McConnell’s closest advisers and handful of surrogate sons.

…There are those who are trying to redefine what a Republican is — I’m not in that group,” he continued. “And so this is, I think, an important point for the future of the party, and given my place in my career at this point, this is the most important thing going on that I might be able to have some impact on.”

Good luck with that. In many ways, Mitch McConnell, as a Trump-hating Reaganite, has more in common with the Lincoln Project than the The Republican Party. Today’s Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump Inc. and, after him, to Trumpism — or, rather right-wing authoritarianism. The “donor class fantasy campaign” is largely over, where DeSantis was the only real competition, and now that seems to have run its course. In fact, the party belongs so much so to Trump at present that it might as well have the Trump insignia branded onto its rump like a steer. McConnell, trying to carve out some foreign policy space for Ukrainian war hawkishness in a Putin-inflected party is laughable at best, Wall Street Journalish at worst.

But even Rupert Murdoch, the Journal’s publisher, knows where his crumpet is buttered. He will ultimately endorse Trump in the end — even though he opposed him in the beginning — and put his media empire in the service of trying to elect Trump in ‘24. Ideological differences notwithstanding. Because even though they disagree on foreign policy, Murdoch finds Trump’s tax cuts to be an offer he simply can’t refuse.

We cannot fail to note in closing how ironic it is that McConnell, accomplished Machiavel in the service to the Republican Party, is being thwarted by the Trumpists in his ideological beliefs about NATO. And the aggressive, vehement statement of legacy this week suggests that the “Moscow Mitch” sobriquet, clearly calculated to rasp the Senate Minority Leader, did exactly just that.

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“Now, a new study finds that the value of news is far higher than policymakers or publishers think it is, at least on Google Search, which accounts for the majority of Google’s $280 billion annual revenue.” (Courtney C. Radsch/Techpolicy)

“The number of encounters with migrants at the southern border actually dropped by a third, from about 7,100 per day in April to about 4,800 per day in June, according to the latest available data. Why did this happen?” (Fareed Zakaria/WashPost)

Lucinda Williams At The Ford (Lefsetz Letter)

“Morin was a career criminal who disarmed his victims with his mutable character-actor looks, charisma, and a grab bag of aliases and backstories. (The psychologist who evaluated him before his first murder trial found him to be ‘rather charming,’ “friendly,” and an “interesting” conversationalist, despite possibly having antisocial personality disorder.) Morin thought Palm was conning him with religious nonsense but started taking her seriously when she produced proof of her devotion: a black notebook filled with hand-copied scriptures.” (Julie Miller/Vanity Fair)

“These entrants to the aid debate fall into three different camps: conservatives like Siegel and Leibovitz, who argue that US aid harms Israel’s autonomy; foreign policy establishment figures like Kurtzer, who believe aid doesn’t make economic sense; and liberals like Rothkopf and Boot, who see cutting aid as a response to right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition. Unlike Palestine solidarity advocates, who have long called for restricting US funding on the basis of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, newer opponents of the aid package are focused not on human rights but on the health of the US-Israel relationship.” (Alex Kane/Jewish Currents)

“Their identities shielded by LLC’s, the buyers for this American dream were, as often as not, a new breed of superrich who circled the globe looking for a place to park their cash, paying designers handsomely to furnish penthouses they never once set foot in.” (Tom Shone/Avenue)

“I will spare you the boring and hyperbolic aphorisms that litter this dull article to introduce the 4-part documentary, “The Super Models,” which will air on Apple TV on September 20th. I wonder what Apple promised Vogue in return for this puff piece. The article calls their work ethic “utterly bananas” – perhaps it’s referring to Campbell’s habitual lateness and disrespect or Evangelista’s unrepentant insouciance.” (Lieba Nesis/Look Online)

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