Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are trying to finish the job
On a day when every inch of the American mainstream demanded that Donald Trump’s presidency come to an end, two of the men who would play a central role in making that happen – Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – both notably laid low. Ryan sent a generic tweet which didn’t mention Trump’s name, while McConnell said nothing at all. And I think I know what they’re up to.
However little you think of Ryan and McConnell, they’ve proven they’re savvy enough to have survived this long despite having nothing to offer the American people. They know where this is headed. They know that by this time next week the first poll will surface that has Donald Trump’s approval rating in the twenties, and members of their own party in Congress will start hitting the panic button. Many of them will want the leadership to oust Trump now, before the midterm races heat up, so he doesn’t cause them to get wiped out.
And so Ryan and McConnell know that their time is short. Whether or not this results in actual impeachment hearings, they know that very soon, the primary focus of the current Congress will be the increasing debate over whether the impeachment process should begin. In other words, after having gotten very little of their own planned legislation passed over the past six months, the Republican leaders know that the window is almost closed. And they’re almost certainly lining up one last big swing.
Whenever the GOP pushes legislation that’s popular with its social conservative base, it’s only ever pandering. The Republican Party leadership knows that it answers to wealthy donors, and only wealthy donors. And at the end of the day, those donors only truly care about getting tax cuts for themselves. So look for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to make one last quick and desperate attempt at finishing the job by ramming through tax cuts for the wealthy. After that, they might well get aboard the anti-Trump train. But history will remember that when it counted most, these two gentlemen failed to do a damn thing.
