Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on President Trump regarding the January 6th Insurrection:
There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. [The Hill, February 13th]
And yesterday?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday that he would “absolutely” support former President Donald Trump if he won the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. [NBC News]
Just excess partisan loyalty?
“My point is what happened in the past is not something relevant now. We’re moving forward,” McConnell told Fox News in response to a clip of his scathing speech last month that torched Trump for feeding “lies” to the mob of insurrectionists and “provoked” them to attack the Capitol. [TPM]
It may be amazing, but, keeping in mind that analyzing the past to forecast the future leads to that hated, by Republicans, term expertise, it’s not shocking. McConnell realizes that if he acknowledged that yesterday matters, then he’d be admitting that hobgoblin of people who know how to get things done, and he can’t have that.
Because he, and his ilk, don’t know how. Indeed, they preach that their voters and allies are perfectly OK; by admitting experts who would change things, they would be telling those constituents that change was coming.
And that’s not really acceptable for those old, conservative voters.
Sure, McConnell is also trying to thread a needle of disliking Trump while remaining attractive to the Trump cult, but whether or not he can make it work depends on how Trump treats McConnell.
All in all, it’s too bad. McConnell had initially said the right thing, but now he’s fallen back in the ditch. This transactional way of doing things works OK in the private sector, so long as the transactions are positive, but refusing to learn from history marks people doomed to failure. That’s where McConnell is heading, and I don’t think he can change course.
