Are we seeing the end of Senator and long time GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)?
Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us. Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it. This is a disqualifying betrayal. https://t.co/PZnI6KorFK
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 5, 2024
Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us. Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we’d be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it. This is a disqualifying betrayal.
Posted just a few days ago, it’s one of several signifying instances collected by Steve Benen. But he doesn’t think McConnell’s yet near the cliff’s edge:
My point is not that members like Cruz and Lee will successfully soon replace their party’s Senate leader. That’s unlikely. But the fact that this far-right duo is going after McConnell, against a backdrop of setbacks, challenges, partisan infighting, and congressional dysfunction, leave little doubt that the minority leader’s power has diminished, and McConnell’s influence appears to be ebbing away.
But I’ve noticed that shifts in power in the GOP do happen with some rapidity. My guess is that, soon enough, someone in the GOP will decide that McConnell is a liberal, start shouting RINO! because they want to be a Kentucky Senator, and McConnell’s age and general decrepitude will work against him. He may gracefully retire rather than fight it.
It’ll be Another RINO run out of a position of influence, and someone, probably more than one, will prance about proclaiming victory, that they’ve purified the Party.
The ironic part of the deal, of course, is the complete ignorance of history. If it weren’t for McConnell’s dishonorable leadership when Justice Scalia died, and, later, when Justice Ginsburg died, SCOTUS would be short two conservative Justices, probably Kavanaugh and Barrett, Roe vs. Wade would still be shielding Republicans from the mistake of pushing anti-abortion legislation, and the USA would be in a far better place. But McConnell couldn’t make himself lead his caucus in voting for impeachment on either occasion, seriously miscalculating the depth of Trump’s pathological narcissism, and, having followed Gingrich’s proclamations for the Republican Party, is faced with a Party getting ready to kick out a loyal Party man, so loyal that he dishonored himself, for Not Being Loyal Enough.
Poor guy. And it’s not even clear, at least to me, that he’s smart enough to realize he’s been playing a leading part in the stage drama The Dissolution of the Republican Party, and The Reduction of America To Second Rate Status.
And now a third-rate McConnell will soon be replaced by some fourth-rater extremist, who’ll fight for Trump’s favor.
I seem to be cranky tonight.
