Hey Mitch McConnell, go for it!
Mitch McConnell just announced that he’s going to work hand in hand with the White House Counsel to make sure that Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial plays out according to Trump’s liking. I know I’m supposed to be outraged at the sheer blatancy of McConnell’s corruption, and on some level I am. But I also don’t give a damn, because this isn’t going to go well for Trump – or for that matter McConnell – no matter how they choose to play it.
Unless something earth shattering happens between now and the Senate impeachment trial, the Republican Senate will acquit Donald Trump. But Nancy Pelosi has dealt Trump and Mitch McConnell a terrible hand that they can’t win. There’s nothing McConnell can do with this trial to make Trump popular enough to give him a shot in 2020. And if McConnell is perceived as throwing the trial to protect a guilty Trump, moderate voters will punish McConnell and the Senate Republicans in 2020.
So McConnell is welcome to play his bad hand however he likes. While the widespread perception is that he simply gets away with whatever he wants, the reality is that there’s always a cost to these kinds of antics. Yes, he rammed Brett Kavanaugh through – but that helped ignite the Blue Wave that handed the House to the Democrats, resulting in impeachment, and putting McConnell in this no-win situation where he has to oversee an impeachment trial that he’d much rather have nothing to do with. Now, depending on how he plays it, the impeachment trial could end up costing McConnell his Senate majority.
The polling makes clear that Donald Trump is not currently in contention for the 2020 election. If it were held today, he’d get blown out. Trump will surely continue trying to find ways to scheme his way back into contention – but the Senate impeachment trial won’t be it. Mitch McConnell is more than welcome to do whatever he wants. He gains nothing by acquitting Trump, and he risks losing his own position as Senate Majority Leader in the process.
