Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been elected by Kentucky voters 19 times, was the focus of a scathing opinion piece published on Wednesday in the Lexington-Herald Leader. The piece slammed McConnell for consistently refusing to stand up to Trump.
Scathing critique
McConnell has failed our country at its moment of maximum peril,” John David Dyche, author of the piece, claimed.
Author authority
Dyche has written a biography of McConnell entitled Republican Leader. “I like Sen. McConnell personally,” he said on Wednesday, “and have profound respect for his once brilliant, if always Machiavellian, political mind and skills.”
Starting from the beginning
According to Dyche, McConnell assumed that Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Upon Trump’s shock victory, McConnell “hoped he could both manipulate and use Trump,” Dyche wrote.
Certain success
Through what Dyche called “ruthless partisan political maneuvering,” McConnell did manage to get three conservative justices appointed to the Supreme Court. He achieved the first of these by blocking Obama from filling a vacancy in the final year of his presidency, an act Brookings called a “cynical power play” in 2020.
Dark side
This “ideological and personal victory,” however, did “long-term damage to the credibility and public perception of the Supreme Court as a judicial, rather than political, body,” Dyche argued. Brookings echoed this assessment, arguing that McConnell’s “hypocrisy” would “weaken the Court’s legitimacy.”
Dangerously wrong
In the wake of the Jan 6 riot, McConnell once again underestimated Trump, Dyche wrote. The Senator “believed this previously unthinkable assault on the American seat of government by domestic terrorists spelled Trump’s political end.”
Far from the truth
McConnell was, as time would tell, “mistaken” about this, Dyche noted. However, at the time, “McConnell neither pushed for Trump’s immediate impeachment nor voted to convict him after the later trial.”
Failed attempt
Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection by 232 votes to 197 in the House of Representatives. However, the Senate later acquitted him.
Strong rhetoric
McConnell has condemned Trump’s actions relating to Jan 6 as “a disgraceful dereliction of duty.” He also asserted that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the riot that resulted in over 140 Capitol officers being injured.
Continued support
Despite all this, McConnell has also said that he would “absolutely” support Trump if the former president became the Republican presidential nominee in 2024. Trump is the leading candidate and easily won the first primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Letting the country down
McConnell “has not even pretended to be a truly national leader,” Dyche concluded. “When the time for a McConnell obituary comes, that will be his legacy.”
Postscript
Dyche noted that a major media organization had approached him to write a preemptive obituary for McConnell.
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