Mitch McConnell hits the panic button
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced yesterday that he’s canceling the upcoming recess and keeping the Senate in session, blaming supposed Democratic obstruction. Donald Trump, because he always mistakes the party line for the truth, promptly celebrated this on Twitter. But in reality, McConnell is doing this for one reason: he’s panicking about his party’s prospects in the November elections.
There are a few popular theories as to why McConnell is specifically canceling recess. The most realistic is that he wants the extra week to ram through the confirmations of additional judges. Another is that he’s trying to prevent Senate Democrats who are up for reelection from being able to spend the week campaigning, though this ignores that Senate Republicans who are up for reelection won’t be able to spend the week campaigning either.
The bottom line is that Mitch McConnell has taken a look at how he thinks things are headed, and he’s concluded that unless he takes drastic action, his party is going to lose control of the Senate in November. McConnell is a fairly savvy politician, corrupt and dishonest as he may be, and he may gain something from this move. But this is a panic move, and even when panic moves do help, it’s usually not by much – and not by nearly as much as is needed.
In any case, Donald Trump is the last person who should be celebrating right now. Mitch McConnell just hit the panic button by canceling recess because he fears that Trump’s toxic unpopularity is going to cost the Republicans the Senate. Trump should be more concerned than ever because McConnell understands how politics works, and he thinks Trump is dead weight.
