The expression on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s face these past four years has been that of someone who looks like the meal he just ate at a friend’s home didn’t quite sit well with him, but still, he knew it would be awkward to run to the restroom.
He has been tragically uncomfortable, but he put on a strained smile and made the most of things.
He deserves a little gratitude, and yet too many Republicans, the die-hard supporters of President Trump in particular, are blaming him for the near-collapse of the party during the 2020 election and the runoff Senate races in Georgia this week.
This isn’t his fault. It’s anybody’s fault but his.
Voters in 2016 closed their eyes, said their prayers, and catapulted a loud-mouth, reality TV businessman with no political experience into the world’s most powerful office. They even did him the favor of giving his party control of both the House and Senate to make doing the things he promised immensely easier.
Trump returned the favor by abandoning much of his agenda, starting stupid fights with cable news hosts on Twitter, and disrespecting his supporters by making them defend each one of his self-destructive tendencies. And, of course, we defended him. The alternative was to welcome the Ilhan Omar wing of the Democratic Party to take over.
McConnell did his part. He kept Republicans in line to support Trump the entire time, passing a tax cut nobody had elected him for; pushing through a Supreme Court nominee (Brett Kavanaugh) who looked all but doomed; and rescuing the manic president from an impeachment at a time when anybody would have been forgiven for saying they’d had enough of the Trump show.
Through it all, McConnell had the patience of a stoned Tibetan monk.
Some Republican voters are faulting McConnell for the most niggling things: He didn’t agree to the $2,000 “stimulus” checks that the president asked for! He didn’t push Senate Republicans to “fight” for Trump!
They need to wake up. Trump’s demand for $2,000 checks — they’re nearly worthless, by the way, so long as states keep their restaurants, bars, and concert venues closed — came out of nowhere and only after Republicans had agreed to $600 checks. That’s not the “art of the deal.” That’s reneging. And what “fight” was McConnell supposed to bring? Trump’s own legal team couldn’t make a compelling case that there was enough widespread voter fraud to have changed the results of the 2020 election. Their failure didn’t then become McConnell’s burden.
Anyone blaming McConnell for the state of the GOP is wrong and, even worse, ungrateful.
