Cult above country: Mitch McConnell again bends the knee to Donald Trump

Don­ald Trump is renowned for unpaid legal bills and stiff­ing con­trac­tors. But he has tak­en on his own kind, refer­ring to influ­en­tial Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell a “bro­ken down crow” and a “dumb son-of-a-bitch.”

McConnell is not dumb. He is the longest serv­ing par­ty leader in U.S. Sen­ate his­to­ry, has rep­re­sent­ed Ken­tucky in the Sen­ate for forty years, and respon­si­ble for con­firm­ing three Supreme Court jus­tices who vot­ed to over­turn Roe v. Wade.

McConnell, eighty-two, is giv­ing up his lead­er­ship duties at year’s end but will stay in the Sen­ate, with his cur­rent term due to end in Jan­u­ary 2027. Don­ald Trump cost Repub­li­cans their Sen­ate major­i­ty in 2020 — the Democ­rats flipped both Geor­gia seats. The Repub­li­cans, bur­dened by the Supreme Court’s abor­tion deci­sion, failed to regain con­trol in 2022 despite many “red wave” predictions.

Yet, despite the ridicule he’s received — and the fact that he pri­vate­ly detests Trump — McConnell has stayed with Biden’s pre­de­ces­sor. He has not only endorsed Trump’s come­back bid, but can be described as Trump’s enabler.

McConnell was there for Trump when the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2019 passed its first impeach­ment res­o­lu­tion. He moved to shut down the Sen­ate tri­al almost before it began and defend­ed Trump, say­ing: “I’m not an impar­tial juror. ”This is a polit­i­cal process. There’s not any­thing judi­cial about it.”

The Sen­ate Repub­li­cans lead­er­ship, in McConnell’s words, was in “total coor­di­na­tion with the White House counsel’s office.”

In the fall of 2020, as Amer­i­cans pre­pared to elect their Pres­i­dent, U.S. Supreme Court Jus­tice Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg breathed her last. After the death of Jus­tice Antonin “Nino” Scalia, McConnell had refused to so much as hold a hear­ing on Pres­i­dent Obama’s nom­i­na­tion of fed­er­al appel­late judge (now Attor­ney Gen­er­al) Mer­rick Gar­land to fill Nino’s seat. The seat was held vacant as polit­i­cal cat­nip for evan­gel­i­cal vot­ers being wooed by Don­ald Trump’s campaign.

In 2020, how­ev­er, with Repub­li­cans still hold­ing a 52–48 major­i­ty, McConnell rushed through con­fir­ma­tion of Jus­tice Amy Coney Bar­rett in just over a month’s time It gave Trump his third Supreme Court appoint­ment and a two-to-one right major­i­ty on the high court. A lav­ish recep­tion in the White House Rose Gar­den sent numer­ous cel­e­brants away with the virus that caus­es COVID-19.

Remak­ing the fed­er­al courts was Trump’s sig­na­ture sell­ing point in lin­ing up reli­gious right sup­port. The court has tak­en into itself qua­si-leg­isla­tive duties and dis­dained prece­dent, act­ing to end affir­ma­tive action in col­lege emis­sions, rolling back fed­er­al author­i­ty under the Clean Water Act and gut­ting a key pro­vi­sion of the 1965 Vot­ing Rights Act signed into law by Pres­i­dent Lyn­don Baines Johnson.

McConnell had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to play statesman.

An insti­tu­tion­al­ist, he was vis­i­bly out­raged and shak­en at the Trump-incit­ed Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion. The senator’s wife, Elaine Chao, quit her job as U.S. Sec­re­tary of Trans­porta­tion in wake of the insurrection.

McConnell took to the Sen­ate floor, and for once was not dron­ing and bor­ing. “There is no ques­tion, none, that Pres­i­dent Trump is prac­ti­cal­ly, and moral­ly, respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing the events of that day,” he told col­leagues and the coun­try. He added lat­er: “I feel exhil­a­rat­ed by the fact that this fel­low (Trump) final­ly, total­ly dis­cred­it­ed him­self… He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”

But McConnell stayed his trig­ger fin­ger. The House vot­ed to impeach the depart­ing Pres­i­dent. The Sen­ate vot­ed 57–43 to con­vict: Sev­en GOP sen­a­tors vot­ed Yeah. McConnell could have fur­nished the addi­tion­al ten votes.

The result: The chance to rid Amer­i­can pol­i­tics of Trump was lost. Trump can run again, and once more endan­ger the Republic.

What is more, McConnell has endorsed him… this a man who accu­rate­ly described the events of Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021 as a “failed insurrection.”

A part of it is par­ti­san. McConnell vot­ed to con­vict Pres­i­dent Clin­ton. He played the role of chief obstruc­tion­ist dur­ing most of Barack Oba­ma’s two terms om tje White House, telling Repub­li­can col­leagues: “The sin­gle most impor­tant thing we want to achieve is for Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to be a one-term president.”

All the while, Trump has kept bang­ing away. He has gone over the bound­aries of racism, mock­ing McConnel­l’s Asian Amer­i­can wife as “Coco Chao.” “I hired his wife,” Trump said of her Cab­i­net appoint­ment, “Did he ever say, ‘Thank you?’”

Lat­er this year, like­ly, col­leagues will line up on the Sen­ate floor to deliv­er McConnell trib­utes. It’s an old boy rit­u­al. It will, how­ev­er, ring hol­low. When it comes to defend­ing our Con­sti­tu­tion, and pre­serv­ing gov­ern­ment by the peo­ple, Mitch McConnell has shown he is a man who could hide in a field of stubble.