Is this Mitch’s “aha” moment?
Spoiler alert: No
Liz Cheney, House representative from one of the Trumpiest counties (70%)in Wyoming, says she’ll vote to impeach Trump. Sen. Murkowski, of Alaska, has promised that, unless Trump goes, she’s leaving the Republican Party. Even Mitch McConnell, one of the GOP’s leading strategists, has said the president committed “impeachable offenses.”
Could leading Republicans — the ones who stood by their near-authoritarian for the past three years, 11 months, and two weeks — finally take a stand to quote-unquote save the soul of the party? At least some of them in the Senate have said they would. But whether McConnell takes the plunge and votes “yea,” encouraging fellow Republicans to do the same, doesn’t necessarily indicate an about-face for the party. It will take much more — years of work, if they’re up to it — to re-create the GOP.
Think back to the violent white nationalism on display in Charlottesville in 2017. Shortly after Trump said the group included “very fine people,” McConnell, in step with a number of other Republican lawmakers, did the right thing, noting “there are no good neo-Nazis.” Yet, even though he’s had countless opportunities to do more — not least of which was impeach in 2019 after we’d learned that Trump went on a firing spree to cover collusion with Russia, violated countless campaign finance laws, and conditioned funding to Ukraine on their willingness to dig dirt on a political opponent in an upcoming race — McConnell stood back. He let it all slide.
By any account, Trump had abused power, violated institutional norms, and abetted foreign interference in our democratic processes. But to McConnell, and the vast majority of Republicans in both the Senate and House, no abuse existed — at least not publicly — because Trump was still their guy. Trump was getting them exactly what they needed: more conservative appellate judges appointed in one term than any other president has accomplished in modern history. Plus, for their longstanding loyalty, they got — not one — but three new, young-ish Justices on the Supreme Court to uphold for years to come any number of potentially anti-democratic pieces of legislation limiting healthcare and abortion, protecting the super-wealthy with tax breaks and loopholes, and eliminating a social safety net that millions of Americans desperately need. McConnell and the rest of the party can rest easy for a little while — they got what they came for. Preservation of power for the powerful.
At least for now.
Following two relatively-unexpected Georgia wins (thank you to the powerful Black-led organizations in the state), the Senate is now at a deadlocked 50–50, with Vice President Harris casting the decisive vote. The GOP lost power this past election, but even so the Democrats likely won’t eliminate the filibuster to pave the way for strong progressive legislation on voting rights, climate cures, job creation, systemic anti-racist reform, etc. A few moderate Democrats will hold out on both eliminating the filibuster (thereby necessitating an impossible 60 votes to stop obstructionist debate and bring a bill to the floor) and strongly progressive bills. If the Biden/Harris administration hopes to get anything done in the next four years, some kind of bipartisanship — even if in small numbers — will have to coalesce. Despite the fact that, for years now, “bipartisanship” is practically a four-letter word on the Hill.
This is where we are.
McConnell may be thinking the following: The GOP isn’t going to make any big waves for the next couple years. If anything, it can do its best to stop strong reform from passing out of Congress and use time “rebuilding its image” in time for 2022, when the GOP is poised (as of now) to take back the Senate. It lost some of its support, as evidenced by Warnock’s and Ossoff’s wins, but it still has a relatively strong and stable base, demonstrated by Biden’s slim win. Plus, while 70% of Americans said they opposed the coup-attempt that took place on Jan. 6th, a full 45% of Republicans “backed” the pro-Trump, white nationalist insurrection.
A full 45% of the party BACKED a white nationalist agenda to overthrow a fairly-run election with a legitimate result.
Picture what that looks like, and what it means for the country. It may not be surprising, given what we know of this Republican Party and the country at large, but it is nevertheless shocking. Painful. Still, with those numbers — in no small part created by the Tea Party and well before that — McConnell will do what he can to keep a sizable chunk of that base while making minor public amends to stop offending the suburban moms. But a “come to Jesus” moment? Not on Mitch’s watch. It just doesn’t serve him or his party.
Don’t forget this: When President Obama first took office, Sen. McConnell vowed to stymy nearly 400 pieces of legislation and fought to make Obama a “one-term president.” Whatever he decides in the upcoming impeachment trial — whether to vote yea or nay — it won’t be an attempt to transform the conscience of the Republican Party. Perhaps Mitt Romney or Colin Powell or some other honoroble can be called on for that; perhaps they can even, over the years, accomplish some soul-searching so that the GOP actually lives and breathes some form of “compassionate conservatism.” Perhaps then, the country will volley back and forth but never stray too far from the middle. But for now, McConnell will do whatever makes sense to maintain power, to keep wealth in the hands of the wealthy, and to win elections going forward.
Keep Trump from ever running for office again? Yes. But work hard to eliminate Trumpism itself? Doubtful.
McConnell and others didn’t do what was necessary years ago when they aw the writing on the wall: They knew then that Trump was nothing more than a mob boss enabling interference by a foreign enemy, sitting in the Oval Office not to unite the country but to personally profit from its economy, protecting his own power by further dividing the country with racist rhetoric — and now incitement. He called neo-Nazi white nationalists “very fine people,” told the white nationalist “Proud Boys” to stand by, and ripped children from parents seeking survival. McConnell stood by that. They all did.
But then the commander-in-chief did what they didn’t expect: unleashed danger on their own house. That — not everything that came before and inevitably led to this point — is the part McConnell considers unacceptable. We had to wait until Trump took a play from Osama bin Laden himself, giving the country’s sleeper cell terrorists life.
If we see a “yea” vote from McConnell, we’ve got to call him — and the GOP — out on it. The whole country needs to change; we all need to look inside, white people especially (including myself) to consider what a true people-led democracy looks like, and then take the steps needed to get there. Rep. Cheney was right to say about the upcoming impeachment trial: “There are times when those of us who are elected officials are called on to act in a way that does not take politics into consideration.” Yes. We must, no matter our party affiliation, demand that those at the very top reform from the inside out. Not just do what’s politically expedient but what is moral, just, essential. Otherwise, we’ll never see a country that — finally, hopefully — lives up to the words so optimistically laid on paper hundreds of years ago.
