The real reason Mitch McConnell is moving on
For years pundits measured Donald Trump’s viability as the preeminent leader of the Republican Party by a single metric: his approval rating with the American people. But there’s another, less visible metric at work behind the scenes, and it might turn out to be the only one that actually matters.
Polls and protests aside, the only thing that really seems to matter to a dwindling but powerful few Republican lawmakers these days is what minority leader Senator Mitch McConnell thinks. But what sets those lawmakers apart from the noisemakers like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene or Senator Ted Cruz is their capacity to get things done behind the scenes. This movement of growing discontent could make the difference between Trump’s ability to continue to hold sway inside the Republican juggernaut and his ultimate political epitaph. We will have to see who wins out, the loud or the sneaky.
But there can be little doubt that McConnell has tested the political winds and finally determined they no longer blow favorable for Donald Trump. To a man for whom loyalty means as little as it does to Donald Trump himself, that could spell doom for Trump and Trumpism. We will have to wait and see.
Whatever cynical and self-dealing calculation McConnell has made to cause him to reach this decision, you can be certain it has nothing to do with the good of the American people or the health of American democracy. It probably boils down to money interests, and the movers and shakers who pull economic strings behind the scenes are, more and more, seeing Trump and Trumpism as a dead end. So McConnell and friends are quietly working to make sure that never Trumpers gain office in 2022. Mitch’s goal is twofold: regain Republican power across the board (especially in the Senate) in 2022 and unravel Trump’s power.
Trump is working desperately to maintain his hold on the Republican Party by elevating a slate of Trump-friendly candidates. McConnell and his small contingent of allies are quietly maneuvering to try to thwart him. It’s a game for all the marbles, and McConnell has searched that remnant of what some people refer to as a soul and decided his best prospects thrive in a Trumpless future.
In private talks with senators and candidates for the Senate, McConnell is surprisingly forthcoming about the harm he thinks Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party. A small but growing list of Republicans quietly agree with him, or at least they are finally admitting out loud what they have thought all along. Like Mitch, they don’t want any more of what McConnell calls “goofballs” winning Republican primaries.
The good news is Trump endorsements have not always been helpful for candidates. This may be because Trump extremism doesn’t poll well in many venues, and the new crop of pro-Trump candidates are a bit too extreme for all but the reddest constituencies.
In short, the virulent pro-Trump candidates, in their desperate determination to outdo each other in abject obeisance to Trump, could be losing the one thing that will get them elected: votes. Whatever the outcome, it cannot be good for the Republican Party, and it could help the good guys keep the House and the Senate. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.