Nothing sets off progressives more than the thought that President Trump or Senate Majority Leader McConnell has prevailed. A sure trigger.
1
You missed laying the blame of the Mid Term (R) wipe out on Senator McConnell. Recall His handling of the Kavanagh hearing. Mr.McConnell and WH lawyer Don McGahn, controlled, and limited Both FBI attempts to investigate candidate Kavanagh. Sen McConnell, said to America,the He would "ram him through." Enter Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, with great stress to herself came forward to testify against the drunken assaulter, that was Kavanagh, hoping she could prevent this kind of man being approved for the Supreme Court.
Watching this was thousands of Highly Educated Women. In a court setting, a prosecutor would present expert after expert on Adult Trauma, "teaching" the Judge, Defense and Jurists. Alas this was left up to Sen.McConnell and crew who knew NOTHING,of adult trauma. The very day that Senator Susan Collins came up with her ridiculous reasoning, followed by Jeff Flake, Those Thousands of Women Moved en Mass, some to run for office, the others spoke with their Vote, (R) wipe out, because Women Believed Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and Not Sen.McConnell. Mr.Kavanagh remains guilty as charged, and unfit for his station. Post his approval, by Mr.McConnell, there remains untouched evidence supporting Dr. Fords testimony. Sen. Mcconnell's Folly gave rise to a new energized Democrat Party. Americans are Happy about that.
28
"Mitch McConnell Got Everything He Wanted. But at What Cost?"
Whatever the cost to Mitch, we need to double it.
This wee little man regularly betrays his state, his country.
He made, and glories publicly in, decisions that threaten the country and undermine the courts, the law, the market.
We will be decades, literally, digging out from under this glib (yet somehow pathetic and whiny) little excuse for a leader.
41
I find it preposterous that as much as McConnell claims he reveres the Senate that he has any idea what his claims mean.
The Senate should not be driven by partisan hackery/lackyism as he has proved it to be during his tenure.
The Senate/House are meant to be an identifiable different branch of government from the Executive Branch, but McConnell sees his role, as put to him by his dark money patrons, is to see that their interests are cared for.
I hope he lives long enough to read the unbiased, academic accounts of his tenure as Senate Majority Leader as being the most abysmal and anti-Constitutional in the history of the country.
So much for your legacy, money grubbing, weak-kneed Mitch.
40
In an effort to get this posted I’ve altered a word in my final sentence.
I can’t look at his picture without feelings which wouldn’t be published.
Unlike Individual #1, McConnell doesn’t appear to have the type of personality disorder which would blind him to the effects of his actions. Therefore I hold him more culpable.
Why does this intelligent person persist in this malevolence: money (I would think he has enough), fame (enough of that also), sex (pretty doubtful), power (I guess that is it despite his years in command)?
As a neurologist, I’d think he’d realize he’s accomplished all of the above, and then want to act as a reasonable, fellow human. But, given his near-treasonous opposition to anything from our African-American president and, listening to his thoughts on immigration - a possible generalization to all non-whites: I feel race must also be a major motivator for his actions.
39
The poorest state has one of the wealthiest senators...you do the math.
37
I believe it's time to put a swift end to Trump's corruption and open contact with the wife of Supreme Court Justice Thomas and her right wing group. There comes a time to end his sham with direct determination. The country belongs to all of us equally, not merely Trump's demented way. Mitch McConnell is directly an enabler through his silence. He's needs to be booted out at the same time.
Trump's closest attorney, campaign aids are all indicted for their intentional collusion with Russia and shouldn't be tolerated by us for another day.
30
Our founding fathers recognized that every system in the end depends upon the moral character of those implementing it. Every system, in other words, can be gotten around by those who use unscrupulous methods.
Aron Burr is considered by many to be the bad apple during the days of our nation's birth. Now, though McConnell certainly deserves an "Unscrupulosity Award", there's a lot of competition these days in his Republican Party.
26
McConnell is a feckless man who has lost his way. Under his leadership Congress is diminished, and has abdicated it's responsibility to act as an effective check on executive branch powers.
"... I think my responsibility as the majority leader of the Senate, in a Republican administration, is to achieve as much as I can for the American people along the lines that I’ve believed in my entire life.”
Wow... In direct contrast to that personal insight, Biographer Alex MacGillis wrote; "from a moderate Republican who supported abortion rights and public employee unions to the embodiment of partisan obstructionism and conservative orthodoxy on Capitol Hill." .... McConnell's transformation was "driven less by a shift in ideological conviction than by a desire to win elections and stay in power at all costs."
Mr. MacGillis seems to know Mitch better than he knows himself.
59
Mitch McConnell's total passivity, which gave Trump cover to continue the shutdown during this crisis, shows him for what he is - a feckless enabler of the most corrupt president in our nation's history.
40
I found myself more and more actually enraged as I read this. McConnell has weaponized the Senate and its rules. He is beyond a doubt the most irresponsible and even evil politician of the first part of 21st Century. Not evil for his politics - he was clear on those in his remarks in the article - but in his methods. He has harmed us and our polity immeasurably. I loathe him eith a perfect loathing.
58
He lost the plot. Disgusting. Never be Republican again with he and Trump around. Ever. The Merrick Garland fiasco was shocking. Well qualified. Moderate. Never even met with him. Disrespectful creep. He has enabled the Trump behaviour to continue.
Embarassment to America. Sally Bott
49
@Sally Bott His unconstitutional treatment of Garland has made the SC illegitimate.
16
McConnell isn’t playing the villain, he is a villain. He isn't a student of history as much as a student of loopholes and ways to circumvent the intent of the Constitution and to make new rules. He studied what has traditionally been done by gentlemen of honor, and then twisted the intent of generations to do what he wanted to do for the moneyed interests that have made him rich. There aren’t timetables prescribed in the Constitution. And he proceeded then to thwart intent by dawdling incredibly over advice and consent of federal judgeships. All during the Obama Administration he dawdled. This was remarked upon but there was no hue and cry until Merrick Garland’s nomination was effectively tabled. Then he waited for a new election and, he hoped, a Republican President. (And he helped to bring that about by refusing to sign on to a notification to the American people of the Russian attempts to manipulate the election for his party’s benefit). With the elimination of 60 votes, he has pushed through every judge sent to them by the Federalist Society. And is filling the giant backlog. This is his accomplishment. To upend the Constitution’s three co-equal branches. The judges at lower levels will effectively make law or thwart law already made. The President will rule by executive order, and McConnell’s own, third branch becomes obsolete as its prerogative is frittered away. He has effectively made himself soon to be irrelevant. And all those to follow. Despicable man.
61
All well and good that McConnell disliked apartheid in South Africa, but he isn't against it in America -- his positions on. voting rights and pictures of him taken in front of confederate flags with KKK members testifies to that.
41
In the 50 years I've been reading the New York Times I can't remember ever having torn off the cover of the Magazine section before reading it, until this morning.
21
I wonder how he sleeps at night.
23
I posted the following link in a reply on a different NYT article a month or so ago. McConnell's legacy will be as one of the most effective gravediggers of American democracy in modern history.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
17
The dude needs to go.
15
Stop providing free publicity for this ignorant and dangerous little man. To obscurity he must go, to the dustbin of history, if not the toilet. He does not deserve an iota of redemption through the Times, a paper he despises and would shutter in a heartbeat, if he had a heart. I believe nothing he says, and I do not need to read another article trying to understand him. A clod is a clod.
Articles like this expose the truth: Powerful politicians and powerful people in charge of American newspapers are in cahoots and just playing the game of gaslighting. Much like Trump and the Times, both need each other desperately, and it shows. That’s called an unhealthy dependent relationship. Get over it.
22
McConnell is the Darth Vader of minority rule with the minority being the idiot elite (0.1%), the angry uneducated, the steely eyed religious zealots, and the bewildered embittered shut ins. Now he struggles to control his trimpy gollum.
17
McConnell hurts the country every day. He has raped the American Morality. He is addicted to money and power.
He has corrupted everything he touches.
I intend to donate heavenly to his opponent in 2020.
31
McConnell - have you no decency?
27
Republicans have given us two 'most consequential' politicians -- McConnell and Dick Cheney -- who both took possession of the ball and ran with it, as fast and as far as they could. Skilled manipulators of big government, they had their way with America like none in recent memory.
Well, we're STILL at war in the Middle East.
And now we have a far alt right Supreme Court, led by a 'centrist, a caller of balls and strikes,' who handed Gee Dubya his presidency on a silver platter -- which he quickly handed off to VP Cheney. Who locked his door and wrote legislation with Corps Americana, and now we cannot know WHAT they're injecting into our precious aquifers -- Cheney got that fixed right quick. Among a myriad of additional offenses to humanity.
Where's that World Court, when you really need it?
Trump did make a great point, on his first most-likely-illegal campaign trail, when brother Jeb suggested Dubya had 'kept America safe' during his presidency, and Trump, to his credit said [approximately], "well, what about 9/11? How 'safe' did your brother and, let us not forget, Dick Cheney -- how safe did they keep us then?"
Most of this shutdown credit goes to McConnell, who could have fulfilled his constitutionally-mandated role and brought previously-unamously-passed VETO-PROOF legislation to the floor of the Senate. And we wouldn't have had to spend a billion and a half dollars -- per day! -- on watching this self-professed 'great negotiator' President gain nothing.
15
McConnell is a more cruel and despicable individual than Donald Trump. Why? Simply because he is not an ignorant man. He has enabled Donald despite knowing the immorality and corruption of that president and his family. Supporting Trump he has also demonstrated he is a racist bigoted Senator, which we knew as soon as Obama was elected and he and his fellow Republicans decided they would do everything in their power to make Obama a failure. He denied Obama's judicial appointment to the Supreme Court for a year, a candidate who was eminently qualified to fill Scalia's seat.
It is sad that a majority of Kentucky voters elected him. It is sad that they elected Donald Trump.
Racism is alive and well in this country and in the Halls of Congress.
As a member of a minority, and although born a citizen to parents who were both born citizens, I have known that for as long as I have lived in this country.
There are none so blind than those who refuse to see.
18
Mr. McConnell does not care about the people of this country. He like Mr. Trump care only about the person they see in the mirror each morning.
Both will go down in history but not in the manor they envision.
The McConnell smirk and the Donald scowl. On display daily.
The political end of these two narcissists can't come soon enough.
12
Many years ago McConnell vowed to oppose everything Obama wanted, and with Republicans' help he succeeded for the most part. Now his wife holds a cabinet post in Trump's administration, so do you think he'll oppose anything Trump wants? When will Republicans develop a spine and a brain?
12
McConnell has for a long time disrespected the formal and informal traditions of the Senate. His behavior has totally degraded the institution and put it exclusively at the service, first of his party, and now of this pitiful excuse of a president. Is it that he is owned by Russian money? Is it that he wants to destroy democracy from within? Is it just greed for all the special interest donations? Is it because he is evil? I don't know. What I do know is that he shouldn't be in the Senate, let alone its majority leader. This subservience to Trump is destroying both the country and the Republican party. It is long past time for McConnell to go.
21
He was easily purchased. Secretary of Transportation.
8
@JDLewis who is the daughter of a Chinese oligarch. Easily purchased indeed.
1
McConnell destroyed the checks and balances of the US government. He used his power not for the American people but for his own agenda.
13
If Mitch McConnell is so deeply studied in our history he should then also understand exactly where his lot will fall in it — as the gutless enabler of a hack and fraud who damaged this country.
14
We are doomed because our cowardly politicians never get rid of our rotten judges who don't deserve to wear the robe of justice. Financially wise we have the very worst justice system in the world and it's being made worse by the Reeps.
4
This article lays bare the GOP's false stance against "activist judges". McConnell and his fellow Senators have completely abdicated their role in drafting and passing legislation and are passing their work on to the judicial branch. These Senators should get a huge pay cut, lose their staffs and lose their government benefits.
McConnell is also a traitor who refused to work with President Obama to address Russian interference in our elections.
14
The cost??? Damage to our system of government and the faith of people that it will continue to work, damage to the trust of the rest of the world in our country, damage to our future. that is hopefully not fatal, as we hurtle towards global warming while they only worry about power and accumulation of wealth.
3
Yes, Mike Mansfield worked with large Democratic majorities, and 22 of those seats were held by the states of the former Confederacy, who were Republicans in everything but name only.
2
Let us list what Mitch McConnell got and at what cost.
1) in an unprecedented move, delayed hearings for a Supreme Court justice for over a year, for purely political reasons (maybe a bit of malice in there too).
2) Voted to confirm a Supreme Court nominee accused of sexual assault. The words "sexual assault," "accused," and "Supreme Court nominee" should never occur in the same sentence.
Result: politicized what is supposed to a non-partisan branch of our government.
3) Held up for 35 days bringing to the floor a vote to reopen the government, the same bill he eventually agreed to, after the president agreed to it, and the same bill the GOP-controlled Senate passed in December 2018.
Results: Diminished the role of the Senate within Congress as a coequal branch of government, as specified in Article 1 of the US Constitution, and simultaneously, diminished his own power as Majority Leader. Also subjected 800,000 Federal workers to misery, penury, and indignity, as well as endangering the lives of any of u who needed to fly, eat, ot take medicine during the previous 35 days.
Thanks, Mitch.
15
Interesting. The elephant in the room is Russia, and I wish there had been more about the Trump-Russia connections and the Mueller report.
3
Mitch McConnell's actions are a stain on the country. He is the epitome of what is wrong with partisan politics. Given his wife's cabinet position and his support of the Trump clan no matter what it's behavior he is a extreme supporter of dynastic politics.
His legacy for frustrating the will of the voters will live on long after he's gone;he prevented votes for hundreds of Obama's judicial appointments,while loading the federal courts with the most conservative nominees in recent history.
5
As a liberal American, this was a very depressing read. Apart from his speech on apartheid, the overwhelming theme of McConnell's career has been party over country. For me, this is doubly painful, since his views oppose mine. But I would hope that any honest American would lament this approach, and the way it has reinforced and magnified the partisanship in our country over the past 30 years.
McConnell points out that some of the tools he has used for obstruction were invented by Democrats. Fair point. But as this article shows, at every turn he has expanded, amplified, and multiplied their use and reach, to such a degree that he has unquestionably poisoned American democracy.
The contrast between his reign and that of Mansfield's in the 1960's is instructive. The minority party proposed, and the majority party disposed, it is true. But genuinely bipartisan legislation was passed, because both sides were not just waiting for the next election to trash their opponents. And they were not just waiting for the next election, full stop. They could and did believe in an American, not party, political system where legislation arises from the tension between the ideas of both parties, not a winner take all seesaw that violently changes direction every six or eight years.
6
Boy! That’s one bad picture. Though it does reflect the GOP’s lack of artistry and technical know how. It says lack of attention to details.
3
In my simple deductions from your very thorough and interesting article, Mr. McConnell appears to share a major trait with the president. Both are completely amoral. The end justifies the means, and their conduct is conscience-free.
My experience of such people is that they invariably get found out and come unstuck, because they cannot be trusted and are really only in the game for themselves. Their power, their influence, their personal glory is all that matters. The rest of us can go hang.
Mr. McConnell appears to have struck a devil's bargain with Mr. Trump. Does he know what happened to Faust?
Mr. Trump would appear to be heading for a date with the Scales of Justice. For all their packing of the Supreme Court and other federal judgeships, I sincerely doubt this will help either of them, reputationally or otherwise, when the FBI come door-knocking.
5
Thank you for this detailed look at an individual who history will remember as a destroyer of democracy. I never thought I would see the day when a senator would openly state that he wanted to undermine a president and so blatantly ignore and disparage the preference of the people. I remain mystified why he has been re-elected by voters of Kentucky. I find nothing to admire about such a venal and self-serving person, no matter how legislatively skilled he is.
7
McConnell and Trump may be very different, but they are alike in one thing: they both lie incessantly to promote their own interests.
8
Mitch McConnell: hypocrite and anachronism.
His idol is Edmund Burke, British champion of prudence and traditional institutions. McConnell honors neither of these. He gives lip service to respect for institutions, but then proceeds to destroy them. He has imprudently flouted one tradition after another: the way the Senate does business, how Supreme Court Justices are chosen, how elections are conducted. And, he has he has disrupted the balance between the three branches of government by putting legislative power into the hands of the judiciary.
Edmund Burke accused his nemesis, Thomas Paine, of advocating the tearing down institutions and starting over. Ironically, McConnell has established his reputation on doing precisely that. He has used weapons of obstruction to thwart the institutions of politics.
Burke’s ideas were written for an 18th century world; yet McConnell and other conservatives continue to attempt to apply them to a 21st century reality. What’s worse, Burke wrote those ideas to address the specifics of British culture - not America. In fact, Burke wrote that American culture was significantly different from the British and that the British monarchy could not expect them to conform to its standards. Yet, McConnell continues to try to pound the square peg of Burke’s uniquely British template into the round hole of American culture.
McConnell’s legacy will be his permanent scowl, and the scowl he carved with a rusty knife on our political institutions.
5
This long article paints a picture of a soul-less, malevolent man who isn't capable of caring about his country except as it reflects his own limited values and bigotries.
I'd like to ask how the author managed to write so much without mentioning McConnell's wife, who is sitting in Trump's Cabinet, in an extraordinary conflict of interest, given the source of her wealth.
Let us hope that it doesn't take more than a generation to right the wrongs these people have done and continue to do.
5
Are we to conclude from their telling that McConnell and Ryan have been the adults in the room staving off tyranny and complete anarchy at the hands of the Orange Croesus? It’s a scary thought that this is the best Congress can do. Pro-active legislation to move America forward is effectively dead in the water now and has been since McConnell pursued obstruction of any Democrat legislation for the past 10 years or so. Maybe I need to read the Meacham book referenced herein because I — along with many middle class Americans struggling to to get by — feel even more hopeless now than ever after reading this article.
3
No question, he is a brilliant tactician and skilled at getting what he wants in the short term. But in his obstructionism and Machiavellian hijacking of the judiciary, along with the fact that he is utterly beholden to Trump, he has sacrificed his reputation. McConnell will not be treated well by history.
5
Mitch McConnell, even more than our "president," is Exhibit A in everything that's wrong with our government and poisonous politics.
6
Can't wait for the movie. Christian Bale could don his make-up again and play McConnell. Call it Vice 2.0.
The way this democracy is going, it feels as if the only power we're left with is satire.
5
Damon Winter's photograph is brilliant. He has succinctly depicted McConnell as an unaware old man, sitting alone, in a chair, in front of a nondescript wall, in an empty room. And my guess is that McConnell had no idea what happened when the shutter clicked.
8
If McConnell’s primary skills are obstructionism and mastery of arcane political machinations, it’s particularly interesting to contrast his skill versus that of #45. However, it is a certainty that our President, lacking the the interest, discipline, and perhaps even the mere ability to read this, will ever understand how McConnell has outmaneuvered him at every turn. Sadly, they are both responsible for one of the ugliest periods in our history- one in which there is no certainty our democratic institutions we will recover from.
10
Dear NY Times, I am a subscriber to your website because of this kind of reporting. Magnificent piece of work. Thank you, Charles Homans, and thank you, NY Times.
6
McConnell is Trump's enabler. His desire to have a very conservative Appellate and Supreme Court could cost our country much of it social progress gained over the last 40 years. If former Senator Reid pulled that stunt with a SC nominee chosen by Bush 43 he would have been tarred , feathered & run out of town. I would suspect that McConnell is one of the keys to Trump's political survival. When the Mueller report is issued perhaps he will engineer the collapse of Republican support in the Senate. Though the political climate is in great flux I would not be surprised if he were re-elected. I can only hope that this does not happen. McConnell made no bones about trying to make sure that then president- elect Obama would be a one term president. He was one of the principle figures in obstructing President Obama's legislative agenda. I understand that as a Republican he would be opposed to much of a Democratic president's agenda. McConnell though went the extra mile to sabotage President Obama's agenda even if were to be of benefit to the country. If Trump is the clown dancing on the main stage McConnell is one of the principle figures manipulating the scene. McConnell has shown that he will do what he has to in protecting himself & the Republican majority in the Senate. McConnell is truly a despicable individual and represents the worst qualities that can be found in a politician.
6
Poor Mitch. What he doesn’t realize is his loss is even greater—the loss of his integrity.
4
@Susan
Susan McConnell is a hollow man- he never has had any integrity. He's without scruples and empathy for anyone. Otherwise, he would have brought to the floor the bi-partisan bill for a vote months ago; it would have prevented Trump's shutdown.Instead, he did Trump's bidding.
When Mitch McConnell is gone, it will be the country's gain.
4
The photo is an excellent reflection of the essential smallness of the man.
6
McConnell really is Machiavelli reincarnated. He is the guy who is holding our Democracy hostage.
He is abetted by the rest of the Republicans in Congress. They all, in turn, protect Trump.
It appears that all McConell cares about is the Party, not the Country and the rights of all Americans.
He has made it possible for our Voting rights to be interfered with, the ACA almost abolished, the right of Obama to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, the long term economic health of our country put in jeopardy by passing a travesty of a tax reform bill. McConnell is a one way wrecking crew. Trump is just a cover for him.
5
The very idea that one man can literally stop OUR government is outrageous.
Apparently OUR senators are finally going to pass a law that prevents anyone from shutting down OUR government for any reason.
It's about damn time.
9
It will be interesting to see what Senator McConnell and his party colleagues do with the Muller report findings. Or how they approach 2020 if there are other R contenders.
4
An excellent piece, showing the workings of one of the most powerful positions in our government. If you had done (or perhaps you did) the same thing about Harry Reid, I’m sure most of the readers here would have praised him for his skill. McConnell came across as a master of his trade, who understands what he can and can’t accomplish. It’s unfortunate you didn’t mention any bipartisan achievements, such as the prison reform passed late last year.
It’s obvious that if you’re left-leaning, you can’t stand him, because he’s been successful in pushing a right leaning agenda. That doesn’t mean you can’t admire him, and wish he was playing for your team.
As informative and objective is this piece is, it does not explain Mitch McConnell to my satisfaction or understanding. In this divided nation I think it behooves us all to attempt an understanding of the opposition, and yet I cannot put aside my dislike, my disdain, of a man who has single-handedly prevented progress in a nation that wants to pride itself on a democracy accepting of all who come to it. I hope it is true that history does not look kindly on Mitch McConnell. I hope that is his legacy.
16
"There had been an improbable synergy between the two men: the president who covets power but has little sense or discipline in wielding it, and the legislator who has often seemed to consider the skillful exercise of power an end unto itself."
An end to itself? Please don't worry about Mitch McConnell. Their remuneration goes down by millions every time she rejoins the government and must forego all her directorships and fees. He uses his position to have his wife bring home the bacon.
4
McConnell & Gingrich - the 2 representatives of the past generation who have dragged our country through the mud with their Southern-Fried Conservatism win at all costs politics. They win, but at what cost to our country?
32
It is time for Mitch McConnell to leave the senate. It is time for him to take his over inflated and, in my opinion, undeserved taxpayer funded pension and other benefits and go home. He owns almost as much of the shutdown as Trump does. His failure to get senate republicans to reign in a dangerously incompetent man who has no clue about how to govern this country has tainted him and his legacy beyond repair. Go home Mr. McConnell. Go home and stay there!
31
@jj, it's 'rein', not 'reign.'
3
McConnell’s conservative dogmatism and myopia may lead him to genuinely believe that the anti-democratic, oligarchical, and authoritarian policies he and his compatriots push are what’s best for the country. I, and most of the American public, beg to object. And more of us are voting!
Like many of the Red stripe he does not truly believe in The Constitution, or else he NEVER would have denied Garland a hearing and a vote. I think he’s correct in assessing that as his most consequential act, but it was a truly despicable one. That the Federalist Society has now been given the keys to the judiciary will haunt us for a generation or two; its “originalist” activism is nothing but a smokescreen for transferring ever more money and power to the unelected wealthiest.
I know he could care less about—and probably would positively wallow in—how much this old sixties Lefty has come to despise him and what he stands for. He has earned it. I have little doubt that during our revolution he would have fought for King George.
29
This article was very good & summed up many of my thoughts. For all those who talked about term limits for years….here is a person that should have had a term limit. This last fiasco with the shut-down & the president is so sad that when the 2020 elections come around I hope the people in KY can send this guy packing!
16
@B.B. Don't get your hopes too high on the people of Kentucky suddenly switching the alliances. Just think about those disrespectful all white Covington Catholic High School punks and the mindsets of their voting parents. The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
None of the religious teachings, bible studies with all the parables or stories intended to imprint good versus evil in the minds and souls of those students temper their home taught racism and brainwashing that whites are superior.
4
The only good thing about McConnell is that while the kind of people who vote for Trump enjoy the results of his Macchiavelian behavior, they would never vote for him.
2
McConnell didn't like what American voters wanted and voted for, so he decided to write his own Constitution, spew spite and lies, sell out the electorate, turn the mechanisms of government to the highest bidder and turn rancid hypocrisy to an art form.
Meanwhile, the state he is supposed to represent is dying from twin scourges of a failing economy and rampant drug abuse.
The man is a traitor. He should be arrested, prosecuted and hung from a tree.
23
Trump is dangerous but I don't think he really understands how he is damaging the country. McConnell on the other hand knows exactly what he is doing - much more dangerous.
24
Very well-written and informative about one powerful person’s disregard for compromise or negotiation, and his embrace of obstructionism and delay, so as to only accomplish things “as far-right as possible” to get his statue or room or street name. My vote is not cast to enable that outcome from anyone.
I need a long shower. And someone needs a caning. Those WERE the good ‘ol days.
9
If, God forbid, there is a SCOTUS vacancy in Trump's fourth year in office, can we expect McConnell's position to be the same as it was when he blocked Obama's nominee?
You know, the action (or inaction) he is most proud of himself for?
8
Senator McConnell said,
“The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”
I thought that was a racist act by McConnell, showing disdain for Americas first African American President... as though Obama was unqualified to make an appointment to the SCOTUS.
McConnell denied President Obama his choice for the Supreme Court; Merrick Garland.
Mitch McConnell refused to confirm this new Supreme Court justice appointment , arguing "it was up to the American People to decide", even though President Obama remained in office for another eleven months.
More recently we had the Brett Kavanaugh appointment to the SCOTUS. An unqualified member of the court, as seen in his blatant partisan behavior during his hearings. Even retired Justice Paul Stevens criticized Kavanuagh's behavior, a first for a member of the SCOTUS;.
25
McConnell represents every thing I stand against and I am a patriot.
19
"I spoke to him and tried to get the plan back on track, but that just wasn’t in the cards. And here we are."
No, Senator McConnell. You are nowhere near where we are. That's the problem. In fact, I don't know where you are. You sat on where you were and when we needed your help, you were absent. History won't be kind.
13
Mitch McConnell has worked diligently to undermine democracy and the rule of law for over a decade. He has made it abundantly clear that he values party loyalty and GOP control over national security, free and fair elections, a credible justice system, the health of Americans and our nation's status globally. Working in concert with the House of Representatives, he made it impossible for Obama to accomplish much of anything after the first two years of his presidency. In my opinion, he is the worst kind of traitor. Kentucky should be embarrassed to be represented by him anywhere, much less in the U.S. Senate.
24
What a long expository explanation of a failed human being.
As George Will said, McConnell is in the human resources business. That's it. Just appoint right wing atavistic judges.
He has no soul. No empathy. He could have ended this catastrophe weeks ago. He alone is responsible for the delay.
He prevented the Garland nomination. He soundly proclaimed his goal to defeat Obama. There are no excuses here. He is destroying the Senate.
In essence, a worthless piece of "explanatory" journalism.
16
McConnell will go down as one of the most destructive leaders in the Senate history and from a constitutional perspective the most perverse. He gave himself the right to pocket veto a Supreme Court nominee and also fails to exercise the power of a coequal branch for fear of alienating the Executive. This is not what the Founders had in mind.
11
McCain and the Missus are on Trump's payroll in which he doles out millions for duties done to keep him in office. He is also in the inner circle that determines what the Puppet will do next so, weak chin and all, he maintains power which is all that matters to him unless it is the almighty dollar.
3
@Bethsy Herring. I think you mean McConnell, not McCain.
1
@Betsy Herring
McCain??? Senator McCain died last year.. Do
you mean McConnel??
1
This article is an indictment of McConnell. He should be removed from the Senate. There is nothing positive about him or his tenure as a senator. His legacy is obstruction of Democratic initiatives, an enormous federal deficit, blocking environmental regulations, opposing campaign finance reforms. Having a majority leader from Kentucky with 4.5 million people is like having the tail wag the dog.
13
Let's blame Kentucky. By McConnell's reckoning Trump wouldn't be president without him, so we can say that Kentucky is responsible for Trump. I for one, vow never to travel to Kentucky or knowingly buy anything from Kentucky until they clean this up.
6
Mitch McConnell has proven himself to be untrustworthy and completely at the beck and call of big, dark money donors.
He does NOT care about governing this nation and he is doing untold harm to the good folks in the Replicant Party.
He is a very sad, very uncaring human being!
8
McConnell got everything, and the cost is...everything.
6
You all talk as if he was alone - seems to me he has a lot of Republicans are colluding and allowing him to do what he is doing - or not.
Hope you people/voters kick all those wealth worshipers to the curb ASAP.
12
@BettyInToronto. Hear hear!
1
I so look forward to contributing to his opponent.
7
". . . the gravedigger of American democracy" is the needle-sharp description of McConnell recounted here. And the biggest and deepest hole dug by the power-hungry autocrat has been the unConstitutional blocking of Merrick Garland's appointment. Under a Democratic Senate, a rule could be established to force filibuster-proof majorities for the Supreme Court as was earlier the case, but McConnell would block that, along with every other rule or law deemed essential to the health of our democracy and our people.
McConnell has changed our country, I hope not forever.
9
Wait, there's still a Strom Thurmond Room in the Capitol? While it's a logical place to find Mitch McConnell it's a disgrace that such a room still exists.
8
If only we had someone who was this efficient yet socially convservative as senate majority leader, things that actually mattered might be accomplished.
Imagining a McConnell dedicated to erasing anti-white laws like disparate impact and cracking down on universities and corporations blatantly discriminating against whites thrills me. Yet it will never happen.
Trump got elected precisely because he positioned himself as a culture warrior, and the GOP establishment types like McConnell still don't fully understand that.
To be sure republicans can't win an election with JUST white males (though they did quite well in 2016 with our overwhelming support), but they'll also never win a single one without us. Something for the senator to keep in mind, perhaps.
If the center-right refuses to give us what we demand, we'll find people who will.
Leftists shouldn't worry about Trump. He is uncharismatic and unsuited to governance, though he's certainly done better than our last few presidents. What you SHOULD worry about is who comes after Trump. Democrat neoliberalism and social degeneracy (you call it 'progressiveism) and Republican unrestrainted capitalism and 'economy before society' ideological bents are both revolting, and will be replaced the second a competent nationalist populist realizes he can seize total power simply by giving the people want they want.
Aw, Bubu. You sound scared. Poor white men, about to lose their intrinsic white privilege. Awww.
3
He was told by Obama that Russia was interfering in the election and Mitch told Obama to shut up. Maybe Mueller should subpoena him and ask some very pointed questions.
15
Mitch McConnell is a despicable man. He deliberately blocked Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court and has enabled DJT these past two years. Moreso, during this recent government shutdown.
He is more interested in his own legacy than that of the general public. I have no respect for him at all.
5
Does Mitch McConnell have a spine? He's got 34 years in the Senate - has he learned nothing about leadership? About protecting the institutions of the country he has served for so long? Trump is destroying this country from the inside out and McConnell will go down in history as Trump's enabler. Grow a spine and put your country FIRST.
8
@newyorktimez. He is NOT a leader.
2
McConnell will never be fuzzy in my memory. His legacy will be the diminishing of this country's meaning. Trump is unthinkingly amoral. McConnell was deliberate in putting party before country.
7
Mitch McConnell represents everything wrong with our Democracy, preferential treatments to special interests, corporations, while shameless lying to "We the People". We have a perverted Democracy, Mitch McConnell is the poster child for that perversion as assault against fairness, rule of law, compassion and decency.
9
His heart is a rock. Shameful.
4
I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike Mitch McConnell more than I already do.
This article made it happen. What a despicable, self-serving, power-hungry man.
8
He will go down as the biggest enabler to the Most incompetent and morally bankrupt President. I hope and expect that the History books will be brutal to him.
14
What a wretched excuse for a leader. He should be running a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
6
I can keep this very simple. In Garland obstruction and failure to sign onto bipartisan statement on Russian election interference in fall of 2016, Mitch McConnell spit on democracy and the Constitution. It obliterates everything else and makes this semi-tribute of a profile utterly without value.
10
Thank you. A thoughtful, thorough, and even handed article. However, it doesn't make me hate him any less.
7
A "politician" in the worst sense of the term. An individual that consistently put ideology and party over country. His legacy will be sowing division and national decline during a period of american prosperity and power.
5
An interesting piece. But how can anyone write such an in-depth article about the majority leader without any reference to how this man, a public servant his entire adult life. has amassed a personal fortune in the tens of millions of dollars?
14
@Walt. Yes, let's have another article about that.
6
If Congress is a “co-equal” branch of government, then failing to bring legislation to the floor for a vote *unless the president will sign it* is an abdication of responsibility and a dereliction if duty.
Let’s work to send McConnell back to Kentucky where he can stay in hiding.
6
@Babs. HEAR HEAR !!! Let's work on it!
2
Next for an article on McConnell's constituents - especially the poor, disenfranchised, uninsured people of Kentucky who despite, every observable fact, believe he is somehow championing their interests. The cognitive dissonance of the socially conservative is mind numbing, and it will only get worse with plutocrats like Betsy DeVoss undermining the public education system to eliminate critical thinking skills from student curriculum. After all, who better to exploit with Amway MLM schemes than the critically and deliberately uneducated. Scare, stupify and enrage the electorate, carve up the demographics with impossible Gerrymands, make voting a hurdle for people of color and liberals, and you have the recipe for tyranny. Mitch and Republicans profit from for-profit prisons, from polluting corporate donors and war mongering arms dealers at the expense of the working poor who dream they will be somehow let into the "Just Us" club that saps their health, devalues their labor and cynically exploits their dreams and patriotism.
6
@Steve Fortuna. Yes, I want more articles on the Republicans who were hiding from us this week, not taking votes on bills to open the government, not arranging to override any veto by DT, while federal workers and all of us languished.
As part of this I definitely want an article on McConnell's constituents and what they see in him. What has he done for them, or what do they think he has done for them?
6
While I hold Trump responsible for this shutdown, I hold McConnell responsible for how long this shutdown went on. Any student of history or civics understands that the Legislative Branch (Congress) is equal to the other 2 branches and can override a Presidential veto with 60 votes or more. Certainly Nancy Pelosi understands that. Mitch McConnell knows it as well, and is playing politics and certainly does not have the American people in mind. And then he has the wifey, Elaine Chao, who serves in the Administration I hope that his influence withers as it should. I hope the people of Krntucky realize before it is too late what a millstone he is for them...
5
I await the Mueller report and hope that it ties the rise of Fox News to the NRA and foreign funding of republicans together.
It's not a coincidence that right wing hate talks in lock step
It's not a coincidence that the most loyal to Trump come from the poorest or smallest states. Who benefits by diminishing the US?
Who decides the right wing agenda and talking points? Where did the NRA get $30M to give to Donald Trump's election?
8
@Deirdre. I want to know this, too.
2
We must hold Trump, McConnell & their enablers accountable. Public outcries against shutdown threats & MSM both siderism; denial of SoU address, & perhaps House censure unless Trump & Co withdraw any shutdown threat. Persistence in building a Vote Blue coalition & getting the Blue vote to the polls election cycle after election cycle is key. An historic Blue Wave that retakes Congress is our civic & moral responsibility. We must awaken independents, & Dems across the spectrum to vote Blue.
3
Let's hear more about how his marriage to Elaine Chao, and her ties to the Trump Administration, affect his inability to function on the behalf of American citizens.
5
@Fern. Sounds like a conflict of interest. He would feel compelled to do something to keep her in her high-paying job as Transp. Sec'y (i.e., do whatever T. says) instead of working on behalf of American citizens.
Why are he, T., and others allowed to have their relatives in high positions in the Administration?
T. has several family members in the Adm.: Donald, Jr.; Ivanka; Jared Kushner.
3
What part of public and servant does he not understand?
4
I try to see the good in all events and peoples. I strive to accept life on its terms, to surrender to The Flow. I am, at heart, a Buddhist. But, I hate Mitch McConnell! OK, maybe abhor is a better, cleaner word than "hate." If anyone embodies the selfish, self-interest, look-the-other-way while the planet dies, win-at-all-costs, it's Mitch Baby. I just don't understand how someone of this ilk could wield such power. A total mystery!
6
@Ron. His constituents let him remain in his job as Senator.
McConnell represents everything un-American: Self serving, constantly pursuing his constituent's agenda, despite the best interests of the country. Disgraceful as leader and as an American.
3
I hope the Democratic Party leaders read this and learn.
2
McConnell is like a hid man for Mafia, Robert Mueller has Trump's tax returns all ready and much more, my problem is how these high payed people look at to a mirror and face themselves, hope fully our nation learn some lessons and will not happiend again
2
Mitch accomplished other things as well including disenfranchising me as an American. His line when not allowing Merritt Garland a vote was that he wanted the American people to decide. Well I did...I voted for Obama. So in effect HE decided my vote did not count.
By doing so he accomplished another feat in that I will never vote for a republican again under any circumstance for as long as I am able to vote.
Nice going Mitch! How many others out there feel the same way I do?
8
Well done and scary.
McConnell reinforced he has little concern for the American people's welfare and a lot of concern for the Senate as an institution and power. History will not look on him as a hero. He will be remembered as a Machiavellian who would rather support a President with autocratic tendencies than protect our Constitution (including the amendments). As the his President would state: SAD. VERY, VERY SAD!
3
Winning. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, I don't think that word means what you think it means.
McConnell will have control over how history treats him. Cold comfort for people being asked by Wilbur Ross to go take out loans (payday loans, presumably) or visit food banks. Or transgendered people who face legal discrimination, consecrated by the Roberts Court.
McConnell and Trump have shown how easy it is to sow destruction with a book of matches, a canister of fuel, and a national party that has gladly relinquished any claim to integrity or principle beyond its own self-preservation.
3
He and DJT deserve one another. They are simply two sides of the same coin. Each is “an historical figure in waiting” and history will show that both grasped at power to the detriment of the American people. One can only hope that he will be terribly disappointed in how history treats him.
3
Every move Mitch McConnell makes -- EVERY SINGLE MOVE -- is borne out of self interest, self-preservation, and a desire to retain his political position.
Believe nothing else.
5
It’s good to know that the long term damage done to the country and the world will be and has been by the “ adults in the room”. So if ordinary Americans continue to pay too much for health care, if sensible environmental policies are rejected as we stumble towards a sixth mass extinction, and if we continue to have generally bipartisan support for our endless and often murderous meddling overseas, well, at least we know it was all done by adults.
6
I just wanted to thank Mr Homans for writing a piece that avoided the pejorative and didn't telegraph his own political view. I am not an apologist for McConnell, but it was refreshing to read a balanced, dispassionate, and considered article. I felt the most telling moments were when Mitch confided or attempted to confide with the author. Essentially, Mitch, the master of brinkmanship, got played. We got a glimpse of a needy little man desperately looking for a place in history. You want a strategy for defeating McConnell, I'd start there.
5
McConnel is a failure, exhibiting the disregard for democracy that comes with party first, country second...or third. He's also a failure to the senate, placing the presidential disaster above the legislative body he pretends to lead and what's best for the country...yet again. Finally, he's a failure within what used to be a patriotic political party but is now the home of far-right know-nothings who favor ideological dishonesty over governance. He will be remembered not for what he did for his country but rather for what he did to it.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
9
Really superb writing by Charles Homans. It illuminates my view of McConnell. His obstruction during the Obama years is made more disgusting by his protests over the actions of Democrats today.
In the trump years, it disturbs me that McConnell’s wife works for trump as the Secretary of Transportation in a cabinet in which all of its members have sworn loyalty to trump. To me, it diminishes any credibility that McConnell might have had. If one were dealing with him, either Democrat or Republican, he or she couldn’t be sure that McConnell were speaking from a truly independent posture. McConnell has a particularly southern way of contorting the truth.
Finally, I wonder if McConnell understands what trump really thinks of him, given trump’s characterization of Jeff Sessions, a trump phrase that I can’t even write here because when I used it in a comment a while ago, my post was blocked because trump’s comment was so vile. Just imagine, one cannot post a comment with words from the president. McConnell must know that trump thinks that he is the thought-impaired Southerner that trump thinks that Sessions is.
With that kind of president, McConnell can’t have any good relationship with trump, because, frankly, no one can. Republican voters have put this nation into a horrible mess. McConnell is doing nothing to fix it. He is a horrible little man, if I can be so disparaging of his leadership. It appears that McConnell revels in that when he sets the agenda for trump.
15
For someone across the pond this is such a fascinating and absorbing piece packed with insight. It has lessons for all about power, the effects and potential distortions of process and how easy it is to loose sight of our essential need for co-operation and mutuality in our democratic systems. Many thanks.
6
The most consequential story of Mitch McConnell and so well written. A "must read" of students of history and all who read the law!
Congratulations and Thank You!
7
This government shutdown has been more McConnell's fault than DT's!
McConnell claimed that the Senate could not end the shutdown because the Republican Senators did now know what terms DT would agree to in a bill to open the government. If he is Senate Majority Leader, he could have gotten together a group of Republican Senators to override the anticipated veto of DT! There are 47 Democratic Senators. He would have just needed 13 more to reach the 60 votes needed to override.
Instead he allowed the American public to go without government services, the American public to be put at national security and aeronautical risk, federal workers to be thrown abruptly out of their jobs, and essential federal workers to be pressed into volunteering in their roles -- for over a month.
22
@HC A small point, but I think you need 60 to end a filibuster, and 67 to override a veto...
1
@HC. Editing my own comment. Sorry, 67 votes are needed to override, not 60.
1
@Alan Duxbury. Thank you.
1
It is fairly common knowledge that it was McConnell and not Trump that made the debacle last so long. If he had put the original bill through it would have passed and then Trump's veto could have been overridden.
22
I take issue with the idea that Trump cannot be controlled by McConnell. McConnell is the only thing standing between Trump and investigations into his ties with Russia in his financial dealings. Consider the many thousands of financial documents Republicans asked the Clintons to turn over when Bill was in office.
Trump really really doesn't want to show his returns. And as long as Mitch and the Republicans don't say anything, and point out the obvious - that the man is clearly hiding something - he gets away with it.
I think McConnell has Trump exactly where he wants him. Sure he would prefer a President who wasn't so patently uninformed and out of his league, but otherwise, he is a very useful idiot.
27
It's becoming increasingly clear that after McConnell's 2016 Gorsuch/Garland Supreme Court shell game that it will be at least a generation (and probably more) before any President will be allowed to make an appointment to that court, so long as the other party is in control of the Senate. And -- as seems likely -- should the Democrats win control of both the Presidency and the Senate in 2020, he's given them a reasonable argument for raising the number of SC seats to 11, so as to nullify at least one of the Trump appointments. I've got to wonder how he's going to feel about that particular part of his "legacy".
23
@curious
Even FDR wasn't allowed to stack the courts and he was the most popular president of all time, its cute you think that democrats today will be allowed to.
@curious I wish that what you're saying was true—that it's "likely" that the Democrats will win the Senate in 2020, but I think it is actually unlikely. Democrats would have to keep the states they have now AND win 5 seats or so. The seats we MUST keep include Alabama, Virginia and Michigan, among others. That doesn't make me feel very secure. The seats we MUST gain come from this group: WY, ID, OK, SD, WV, TN, AR, NE, KS, KY, MT, LA, SC, TX, MS, AK, GA, AZ, IA, NC, CO and ME. Not exactly overflowing with liberal Democrats. It will be a long, expensive, uphill battle, and, as we've learned, the GOP is absolutely fine with lying, cheating, and stealing if it means winning a campaign.
2
Trump's legacy IS Mitch McConnell's legacy - McConnell deserves to get the credit for taking the country backwards, in the wrong direction, making it more of a plutocracy, ignoring the pressing issues of the day - global warming and increasing inequality/disappearing middle class, and increasing mistrust of gov't through indifference, incompetence and corruption.
But he doesn't deserve all the credit. No, he had help by way of his spineless and toothless Republican colleagues, who gave him their seal of approval - all it would have taken was 2 of them to be disgusted enough by McConnell's handling of the Russian interference in the election, his lack of response to Trump's corruption, refusal to demand he release his tax returns - to caucus with the Democrats, and we would be in a very different place.
Their actions spoke volumes. Nothing else matters.
39
@DebbieR McConnell has done a fine job of protecting his wife's position, and by extension, his own.
1
I understand it that McConnell is one of those whose reflection does not show up in mirrors.
I also understand it that mirrors hate it when he tries to see his reflection anyway. If only mirrors could vomit.
23
I am still very unclear why McConnell, with the assurances of enough senate vote house votes to over-ride a presidential veto, will/would not present the bill? The security of the country is at risk, millions of lives have been negatively affected, the president's numbers are falling daily, and yet the great tactician will not take steps to step the hemorrhaging? Unbelieveable.
45
A wall of concrete? Or a wall of steel slats? Forget them. Install a long row of statues of McConnell. That should serve as adequate obstruction of the passage of anything, even immigrants.
63
MConnel's great "achievement"? Destroying the credibility of the US courts by turning them into a partisan apparatus, from top to bottom.
No judgement can now be regarded as unbiased.
79
@MMSoares I agree completely. And the fact that Trump has shown the president can do whatever he wants means the next president, who will hopefully be a Democrat, can ignore those judges appointed by Trump as just partisan hacks.
3
@MMSoares
Liberals turned the courts into partisan circuses with judges who would creatively interpret the law to give whatever result they wanted.
You have no right to be upset when the right wing does the same, only more efficiently.
So in the day since this (very well written) article came out, Sen. McConnell blocked a bill to reopen the government for the *fourth* time. Remind me how he's not in control?
51
On the author's comment about Matts' disagreement and resignation.
I thought this is one of the rare positives that the left could have thanked Trump for. The gist of the problem is that there was no longer any financial gain to keep US troops in the Middle East. The US is basically self-sufficient on hydrocarbons, there is no need to keep the supply chain going, no-one in recent history even thought they were going to colonize take over those countries. Hence bringing the troops home is arguably a good move.
I thought everybody agreed "no more stupid wars" was a good thing. If Mattis disagreed with the timeline he had two years to try to plan a better exit, if he disagreed with the exit itself, then Mattis is disagreeing with a large percentage of Americans. I think this is one of the rare things that Trump actually is correct on.
6
True, we’re not as dependent on Middle East hydrocarbons. That financial argument is sound. But does that really erase our concerns over what happens in Syria?
1
Indeed he is correct @JimG.
Lastly, Trump understands that reliance on our troops has made it diminished the capability, no, made it VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the Islamic world to stamp out Islamic fundamentalism on their own. It's time for them to stand on their own feet. Us "helping" is nothing but a hindrance. If "true Islam" doesn't stand for what it really is (?) then it can only be known for its radical extremism forevermore.
It's high time for them over there to prove what they are without spillage of the blood of our children.
1
@kmk. I agree, but the Islamic regimes are helped by other countries in holding onto their power. Ex., Syria is helped by Russia.
1
Senator McConnell is acting in a shameful manner. It is his responsibility to carry out his oath of office. His behavior is a total dereliction of duty. Senator McConnell is using Federal workers as collateral. He has the same out of body/out of the room smirk that Elaine Chao had standing beside Donald Trump as he praised the alt-right following the Charlottesville events. “I’m not here, so I have no responsibility.”
So concerned about his legacy, Senator McConnell stands for nothing but election. Where is his moral compass? I fear he has none like Donald Trump. It is all about personal power and wealth. Where is his leadership at a time when our country is in decline? His legacy and the history books are being written. I fear that they will not be kind to the current leadership (or lack there of.). I’m not sure the Republican Party will survive. I hope that the we can make it through these dark days.
25
The things you fear, I welcome. Veritas.
@Ann Niehoff. I agree except that I don’t fear that history will not be kind to the current leadership. I HOPE it will not be kind. McConnell deserves to be condemned for what he has done to this country.
1
The fact that the established government feels entitled to have complete control of the president, the senate, the house, SCOTUS and every single American is shocking. They are upset they cannot control Trump by shaming him into doing what they want and I frankly am starting to find it amusing at this point.
My liberal friends all once used to be anti-war and very supportive of many of the things the current president has delivered on like restoring us manufacturing(where are the union bosses today?), prison reform, poverty initiatives and Job growth. Now all my liberal friends are all war hawks. I don't get it. I think I may have cast my last liberal vote ever.
The news clearly has an agenda to stop Trump above everything else, even telling the truth. I question everything now because as Joy Bayher said yesterday, They will support anything that stops the president. Clearly that means even outright lies. I am appalled and can say that as a former Obama voter, I no longer identify with my blue socialist compatriots. I am done with voting liberal. You people are lost.
1
@Randy Bye Randy, we'll miss you. From your writing it is apparent you were never much in the "liberal" camp anyway. Donald Trump (and Mitch McConnell) are polarizing figures, so they are going to attract a lot of negative press. But, it is unfair to say that the whole of the media is anti-Trump, look at the Fox News side (as you seem to do) , Ann Coulter, Hannity, etc. They are Trump apologists with an equal bias. There are some very thoughtful comments here regarding the damage McConnell has done institutionally, open your mind to the possibility that this is very real.
2
This is untrue; liberals — myself included — do not want to stop trump at all costs. If trump was authentically for something I believed was not harmful to the country, not in the service of corporate interests — or a 1% bracket alone — at the detriment of the people, I’d be willing to support it if it was meaningful. It seems quaint but a short time ago people like my parents reacted to the majority vote of someone they voted against as, “well, let’s give them a chance.” I think a lot of of us — liberal or not — are still like that. Maybe you were when Obama was elected. But trump hasn’t done anything to disprove our concerns before he was elected. Your note seems to say, he’s done a lot that liberals should appreciate. I’d like to understand why you think that.
1
@RandyAh...what poverty initiatives? Not a baited questions but an honest query.
2
McConnell's rise in the Senate coincided with republican reliance on the propaganda spewing from Fox 'news' and hate radio. And because he only exists in that bubble he sincerely believes he will be remembered as a titan in Senate history. And he will be remembered... he's done more to destroy American democracy than any other single person, including Trump.
34
Mitch knows exactly what he is doing but I don't think he knows how venal it is. It is all just a game to him - a game that he thinks he is winning. But it was never meant to be a game.
Our problem is the founders hadn't the imagination to last centuries. They placed their faith in people - that enough people would see through garbage and elect enough representatives who would understand the great thing they were trying to create. A few would get through but not enough to destroy what they created and not enough to intentionally abuse the weaknesses in the system they created. Sadly there are a few people with great wealth and means to reach and manipulate many people and now we have what we have. With its main defense breached, Mitch abuses an archaic system so the wealthy have inordinate amount of power and say in the life of Americans. And he is proud of himself for doing it.
Many hope that at some point in time and space he will understand his depravity and suffer the harm he has caused others. The karmic debt he has incurred is massive, aiding in the destruction of something that had such potential for good (The US), and choosing greed and spite over anything that could lighten the burden of others. It is not good to wish ill on others, but I do hope he will be found guilty for his crimes to this nation. He has blatantly abused his power and authority and finds joy in his abuse thinking that he is clever.
I know I will never see this day but I do hope.
26
I’m with you entirely! Amen and the best thing I’ve heard in a long time!
1
@Lucas Lynch. I'm with you!
1
He did exactly what any Republican would have done in his job: thwart the will of the people. There's nothing special about him.
19
@JustInsideBeltway
Part of the problem we have today is lack of civil discourse - not all Republicans are evil.. Mitch is, but not all Republicans
The most revealing part of this article is the photograph of Senator McConnell sitting at his desk in his office. Behind him, high up on the wall is a photograph of Alben Barkley, erstwhile member of the House of Representatives, Senate, and Vice President of the United States under the presidency of Harry Truman, all as a Democrat.
An apt representation of what he is, a total political chameleon, a perfect fit to President Trump.
"In whatever direction the wind blows, I'll breeze along."
12
Imagine the amount of McConnell's philosophy that might have been baked in if a "real" Republican president won the 2016 primaries and had gone on to win the White House. The mind boggles. I am sure Senator McConnell has done a few what ifs along those lines in the last two years. All those arrows in his quiver going unused. Save them for a rainy day Senator McConnell and hope it doesn't rain on you but you carry cover for such events. Don't let that legacy get besmirched.
1
Mitch McConnell's name needs to be expunged from the history of the Senate by historians. He does not deserve to be remembered.
21
@Godfrey
Definitely disagree. He will serve as a reminder in generations to come (if we survive the effects of climate change) about what can happen when psychologically warped individuals like Trump, Graham and their bosom buddy Mitch are put in office.
2
Mitch McConnell is one of the worst things to ever happen to everyday poor and middle class American citizens. He only seems to care about the rich, corporate interests above all others and his new love; Trump. He places party first above the best interests of our country when refusing to bring to a vote a bill that would have reopened the government weeks ago in support of building Trump's imaginary unrealistic wall.
Under his leadership the Republican Party has become the Party of Trump. They are no longer the Party of God or of family values. Under Mitch they have become more like the party of greed, lies, hate and fear. Mitch McConnell is a cold calculating, heartless, conniving politician. The one thing I can say he has done well is to destroy the American dream for most Americans.
23
McConnell is a great politician and a horrible human being. It's not a good combination for the rest of us. I wish I had more to say about the senator, but after all this time, I don't.
18
Mitch McConnell is diabolical. He obstructed and stonewalled Obama's presidency, first as minority and then as majority leader, and under Trump has turned into nothing more than a craven enabler–apologist. I live in hope that he is sent to prison for tax evasion, since unfortunately breaking the country is not a crime.
27
McConnell had every opportunity to use his power for the good of the country. He chooses to use his power to beget more power. There is no soul. There is no core belief system. There is no patriotism. He has blocked ending the shutdown. He has blocked infrastucture repairs and improvements. He has blocked immigration reform. He aspires to block healthcare. He is a master stonewaller. His example and legacy is power for power’s sake. He did no good. Proudly.
29
So let us understand: McConnell has turned the Senate into a Human Resources Department, focusing on the hiring of judges and ratifying the appointments of the President; and he has changed the Constitution by denying the power of the veto. 'These are his guiding principles.
He claims not to worry about his legacy. Baloney! His legacy will be that he has undermined our democracy, subverted and ruined the deliberative function of the Senate, encouraged the cheating and stealing of elections, denial of voting rights and civil rights, and contributed to the pollution of the air and water. If he thinks history will look kindly on him, he is drinking too much Kentucky Bourbon.
This article could have summed up his philosophy in two paragraphs. A more useful and revealing article would have explored just whose interests McConnell represents, what he has done for the poor people of Kentucky, and how his wife's wealth and family business interests overlap with his philosophy and votes.
Whatever motivates McConnell, it is certainly not doing anything that is in the best interests of the nation. His behavior during the Obama administration was a disgrace, for which was more than happy to sacrifice the financial stability of the nation, to sacrifice the health of individuals rather than work with Obama to develop an health insurance plan acceptable to all sides, and grant Garland a vote in the Senate.
26
The level of hysteria and hatred in these comments is amazing. The fact that Senator McConnell represents other Americans who hold different political opinions than many of the commenters, and is skillful in representing them does not make him evil or a traitor. As long as some insist on demonizing everyone with whom they disagree, resolving those disagreements will be very difficult.
1
@David
It will be similarly hard for those 'to the left' of McConnell's supporters if they rely on fairly inflammatory and provocative language to support him.
If there are specifics or evidence about which policies he has helped develop or promote-- that are supported by this poster-- it would help the discussion evolve in a positive direction. Let's start from a more productive place then requiring one's opponents to prove they are not 'demons/demonizing.'
3
If McConnell gets re-elected it will be through gerrymandering.McConnell has obstructed justice through a small thing called silence.Not acting on a Russian sympathizing President that had it had been a Democrat would have been impeached long ago.The Republican Party has crossed the line.Personally I think there is a blue tsunami coming in 2020.Larger than they can even dream of.
7
Somehow, at times it feels like a sci fi novel where those who still maintain a degree of sanity can flee to a faraway place and recite the books that have been burned. Except, there is no place to flee!
10
How's this for a theory?
There was a crescendo building up across party lines, across political leanings in America that people are tired of establishment political and state forces.
It seems the idea that congress or senate leadership must 'control' the president eats at the core of what makes people suspect is wrong with DC.
Hence you see democrat fringe candidates with bizarre views get voted in to torment the establishment democrat elders. Two years after a bizarre unskilled politicians with a giant ego was voted in to torment the establishment forces of both parties.
In the mean time, we continue to hear about Russians everywhere. Russians hiding in the bushes, holding secret meetings, always planning to ruin your day. Trump is a Russian plant --- possibly the only Russian in the universe who does not partake any vodka. Isn't that in itself disqualifying.
Now McConnel is also a Russian agent. Really? Still on the Russian thing? Is this comedy or tragedy or is this just hope for a way to get rid of the orange man.
Next time a democrat president is voted president, perhaps the tables can be turned and we can face years of investigations that the democrat president is actually an extraterrestrial from Mars. And Pelosi is actually 500 years old, sent down here from Mars to plan for the day when Mars finally takes over the USA.
If it's possible, I dislike McConnell even more after reading the article. The past two years has given me higher taxes and health care costs, an environment closer to collapse, a skyrocketing budget deficit, and a partially open government. We have Trump who embraces tyrants, offends allies, gets laughed at by world leaders, and enters and exits conflicts with little thought while McConnell does nothing. There's little I can do until the next election, except boycott Kentucky bourbon. It's a $10 billion industry for the state; I can spend my money on spirits made elsewhere. I can't in good conscience put money in the hands of people who will put money in the hands of McConnell. Boycott Kentucky bourbon.
23
I was amused by the early reference to McConnell as Darth Vader, since I use that same term for him. He maintains a low profile, but does irreparable harm by his actions as Senate Majority Leader, both on the floor of the Senate and in all sorts of cloakroom dealings. His stance that he will not bring to the floor any bill which Trump will not sign reduces the entire legislative body and its functions to that of being subordinate to the executive branch, and its unfit head, Trump. So much for supporting the Constitution.
12
I am a long time republican, I'm embarrassed at the leadership! I appreciate all views, but I'm now independent! I'm clearly, very upset at the narrow and self serving objective in mr. trump. We are losing our honor and place as leaders of the free world!
12
I think it hilarious that a person would believe anyone but the american people will pay for this, never Mr. M.
The only consolation is my belief that the electorate gets what it deserves.
5
Senator McConnell's deep study of the history of the country and how the federal government works has been devoted to protecting the rich and powerful at the expense of the average citizen and democracy. Browning has it right about Senator McConnell, he has done a very effective job of enabling the forces threatening democracy especially as seen in his unwillingness to allow the nation to be told of Russia's attack on the election. He is truly a very sad excuse of a senator.
12
This article only reinforces what I always felt towards McConnell: that his only desire is to win, to keep on winning, and to win at all costs. He may claim he is a conservative in principle, but he is at the expense of common sense, of comity and of deference to country. Power is his avatar. And he has chosen power consistently over compromise. He will block, he will deny, he will obstruct (proudly so) - because he can. I think this man could even survive ably in a one party system. One doesn't have to look very far to find one of those. He is not an American. He is only a Republican. A pugnacious one. He makes me very angry.
7
Thank you for explaining why the USA is in a steep rate of decline. We have allowed the essentials of our Constitution to be systematically destroyed. I doubt that this excellently written article will have any effect on our continuing decline. I am glad that I am in my mid 70's because I will not be around to see the ultimately weakened state of affairs that is likely to occur. During the period after WWII we ascended rapidly because we encourage the best and brightest to come to our shores.
Now we have made that former growth into a steep descent where our political and educational systems are falling apart. We are determined to destroy not only our economy but the planetary environment. Most of my friends are totally unaware of what is happening now and for the foreseeable future.
An excellent example is the end of the teachers strike in Los Angeles which accomplished nearly nothing. Where I live the school system is barely functional as I see it despite major attempted advances. I would compare this to what the Chinese government is doing within its own borders. Yes, their systematic oppression is retarding their growth but they are laying the basis for major advances.
Finally, this newspaper is deliberately suppressing any significant public discussion of our nations needs. There is no discussion of the basics of education, environment, or science. Your editorial policy prevents such a discussion no matter what you think.
10
I look forward to investigation of Mr. McConnell's complicity in Russian interference in the 2016 election, and his role in the cover-up of those crimes. His refusal to back veto-proof legislation protecting the Mueller investigation from partisan interference does not pass the smell test. Methinks something is rotten in the state of Kentucky, and it is Mitch's consciousness of guilt.
51
A very well written article, one which leaves me wondering if the institutions of American democracy will survive. Eventually, the Democrats will win the Senate, and when they do, they are likely to use the same methods that Mr. McConnell has used. Obstruction of democracy is not a crime, but the results may well be.
Many people have been talking about a civil war, a revolution happening in America, as the dwindling white, male, lower middle class loses it's privileged place. Hopefully, we won't come to that, but it is difficult to see a path forward for this country. The Rule of Law is being eroded by those who claim to uphold it.
18
After reading this article, which I thought was very well written, I am left with the feeling that the Senate and the Electoral College are the two biggest impediments to democracy. It's not an optimistic feeling.
47
I found your profile of Mr. McConnell both absorbing reading and also depressingly deferential to this senator. So much time spent analyzing, profiling, buffing, and speculating about a politician who has done more than anyone to twist and undermine the democratic underpinnings of our nation. Why, New York Times? Did Mitch McConnell suddenly develop an appetite for media exposure and did you suddenly make a decision to feed it?
Many of us yell -- rightly, in my opinion -- about the damage that egotistical fool Donald Trump is doing to our country. But that damage is negligible compared to the long-term damage Mitch McConnell is accomplishing. You paint a wan and oh-so-polite portrait of a man who set out to wreck the Senate and destroy constitutional checks and balances and who has largely succeeded. Why the deference? The shutdown of the government may be laid mostly at McConnell's feet. What Mitch McConnell mostly wants is what will keep him and the GOP in power forever and ever. Does that deserve such journalistic politesse on your part?
93
@Jimbo. I was happy to read this article to learn about him.
The article fails to mention that Mitch McConnell actually died in the mid 1990s. What we have in his place is zombie Mitch McConnell who wonders aimlessly around the Senate halls. Instead of feeding on brains, he exists by devouring any good idea that arise from the living members of the Senate. He will be remembered as one who was given the opportunity to do great things but chose instead to do absolutely nothing.
38
I am having a hard time reading the whole article. Every paragraph or two I am so shocked and repulsed that this man wields the power he does and has helped pervert our great country. He would probably smile and chuckle at my revulsion as he has achieved so much for so few.
We have lost the meaning of government. It is simply the rules we as a society abide by to maintain an order. This country was founded upon the belief that the citizens hold the power - not a king, not a military, not lords. The founders determined that everyone has certain rights based on the belief that all men are created equal. Individuals have the right to be heard and the majority's will should be done. In cases where inalienable rights are being denied, the majority should be overruled. They created a Constitution that defined rules to best meet out their plan and we have held this Constitution in the highest regard.
Mitch has deemed it necessary to ignore, deny, manipulate, misread, abolish these rules as he sees fit to serve his beliefs which enrich the few at the cost of the many. He achieved this with the aid of certain media which has manipulated their audience and perverted their sense of justice. Even so there isn't a majority will that he serves. Packing the courts with Conservative judges will perpetuate this inversion.
Will we ever as a country wake up from this nightmare and see the damage that has been wrought and that this man is a traitor to what was meant to be?
84
McConnel can thank Reid for abolishing the filibuster in personnel and judge appointments. It started with Reid and the GoP can thank Reid for this gift that allows them to fill key positions with a simple majority.
4
@Lucas Lynch
I feel like I'm reading a gushing review of the marksmanship of Lee Harvey Oswald. Judged by means the man's skill is undeniably, but the ends are despicable and destructive to the public integrity of the United States.
This is an excellent article and I respect that it's not meant as an editorial, but as the moral paucity of centrism goes lauding the talents of a man's mastery of bad-faith manipulation of senatorial politics makes me a little sick.
If ever there was a icon of morally vacuous direction paired with a narcissist's love of power Mitch McConnell is it. "Leave the nation more center-right than it was" doesn't sound like a guiding philosophy it sounds like a vague plan for general sabotage.
9
@Lucas Lynch Thanks for your opinion, although it was way off base unless you spend countless hours watching CNN. What this article tended to avoid was any possibility that Trump is not pandering to Congress and the media and is doing what he feels best for the USA...not the world.
Further, we've become jaded to the fact that Trump's 3 predecessors promises similar immigration reforms during campaigns, yet never followed through...now we have a president actually trying to keep his campaign promises and the media-bashing is endless.
It's miserable how our media is leading the lemmings off the cliff...
1
How much coal lobby money did McConnell receive during his decades in office? Answer that question to learn why he doesn't think we need campaign finance reform. Trump's insistence on bringing back "clean" coal, as if such a thing existed, makes him and Kentucky boy McConnell playmates. Trump was the antithesis of Obama and therefore a perfect co-partner in destruction of anything achieved during Obama's 8 years. Anti-anti-anti everything has been the Republican mantra under McConnell, unless it was a Republican idea.
34
Will some one look into possible legal crimes he could be involved in?
Some one with his long history and dispositions is likely to have some problems with doing things lawfully.
19
@Glenn Warners
What legal crimes? If you are going to make assertions then state what crimes you claim someone has "allegedly committed"
“I said, ‘Look, I’m doing all kinds of events today,’ ” Blunt recalls. “ ‘I’m not hearing that voters, at least who speak to me, are willing to abandon our nominee over this clip. So I’m sticking right where I am.’ ”
This perfectly encapsulates the motivations of today’s GOP: political calculation/expediency over principle—at any cost.
31
I'm half-way through this article and am wondering why McConnell is against campaign finance reform entirely. What is his motivation to keep soft and dark money flowing?
I think I know. I am just extremely curious about Mitch McConnel's reasoning which undoubtedly will appear later in the article. He's already alluded to the answer by saying he would not have won his first election if campaign finance reform was in place, but I want to hear a more thorough analysis of why he thinks reform will hurt the country.
I'm sure it will consist of some sort of "money is free speech" hogwash
24
This man is a real piece of work, he stonwalled a President for many years. In addition he made certain he would never have him name a Justice to the Supreme Court.
Who does he serve, himself or our Republic? it
28
@lftash He serves the The Kochs and their entrenched hatred of Democracy, hatred of paying taxes that will fund programs to help people in need, and hatred of regulations that monitor pollution, food safety, worker safety;McConnell worked to diminish Democracy in everything he did.
4
Why did the writer choose to use "conservatives" when "Democrats" would have been more accurate? "Southern conservatives were effective enough at delaying legislative action on civil rights to prompt the oft-quoted observation of William S. White, The Times’s congressional correspondent in the 1950s, that the Senate was “the South’s unending revenge upon the North for Gettysburg.”" It was Southern Democrats who delayed civil rights legislation, and more Republicans voted FOR passage of civil rights legislation than did Democrats. The truth is out there but is being (intentionally?) obscured by your word choice.
1
@Greg Read your history. The conservatives in the south were indeed part of the "Democrat" party back in the 50s and early 60s.
Then they switched to supporting Republicans in the 70s and 80s.
But they were then, and are now, CONSERVATIVE.
Your post is the typical conservative attempt to claim that they are equivalent to Dems today.
They're not.
4
Greg must have just landed from outer space so he hasn't learned of Nixon's successful Southern Strategy to bring all the Democratic Party's segregationists over to the GOP.
3
@Greg Because those "Democrats" are now proud Republicans ! As Kennedy and later Johnson started to embrace civil rights the conservative democrats of the south fled to the Republican party and were embraced. Just like calling the GOP the party of Lincoln , while true at the time , the heart and soul of the parties has changed. Of course you are well aware of this.
4
This is a story better written at the end of the current nightmare we are in. I can't stand to look at any of them, McConnell being tied for first at the top of the list with Trump and a few others. I think history will show this all to be a "soft coup" of our government, it was started in the early 1990's with the Christian Conservatives, Limbaugh, Tea Party, then it was hijacked by Russia who saw an opportunity, and here we are. For shame.
36
Commenters who have linked McConnell's deference to Trump as a strategy to minimize damage to the former's poll numbers are right on target. Although McConnell defeated Alison Grimes 57% to 40% in 2014, I suspect the margin would be a lot closer if that election was held today. And McConnell is likely looking over his shoulder at Matt Bevins in 2020.
Mitch may be a master tactician, but he blew it with the Garland appointment and is blowing it again with the shutdown. Does it matter to such a student of history and defender of tradition that an increasing number of Americans now view the Senate as a mere rubber stamp for Trump? What happened to legislative independence?
The tables are likely to turn against Mitch in the 2020 elections where as many as six seats could plausibly turn blue, demoting him to minority leader. Even his own seat isn't safe, given his low approval ratings. I hope he has an exit strategy...
18
At a townhall two years ago Senator Merkley told the audience that McConnell and the Republicans derailed the the Merrick Garland nomination at the behest of the Koch brothers, who were concerned Citizen's United would be overturned. Now what if opposite the Democrats at the negotiating table on the government shutdown is not really McConnell, who is only an intermediary, but actually Charles Koch? Charles Koch's lifetime goal is to downsize government, and the longer the shutdown lasts, the greater the damage to effective government. Just another chilling thought I woke up with on this cold winter morning.
27
@Harry Bose You could very well be right....The Koch brothers are against democracy and capitalism as they are really for corporatism....McConnell is and evil man in his heart...he has sold his soul and those that still support Trump are selling their souls but are too ignorant to know it..."Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."
15
I think McConnell knows what he is doing very well indeed.
20
@Gary Schneider Oh, they know what they are doing and don't care. As long as they are in charge they really don't care what happens to the country. Then they can push their radical right agenda.
16
Mitch McConnell is one of the worst, ever. Fate handed him a chance to be a hero to our country forever. The opportunity was there, but the patriot wasn't.
27
McConnell's legacy will be that he was man who worked tirelessly to thwart the will of the majority of Americans. He will be remembered as the least democratic person to ever serve in Congress.
43
Party over country equals nothing less than a complete absence of integrity. McConnell has enabled (along with his quick to retire sidekick Paul Ryan), the Trump administration to continue its absurd and embarrassing lurch through history. McConnell is no better than any demogague's henchman; he looks the other way, smiles his oblique and unknowable smile and reminds me of every criminal who shrugged their shoulders and said they were merely following orders. No wonder so many, throughout the country and his home state of Kentucky, loathe him.
47
@Eva Lockhart. I would like to read the Kentucky newspapers and learn about the reasons his constituents elected him at each election.
McConnell and the rest of the !GOP laid the seeds of their own destruction by betting the bank on conservative judges and tax cuts for the wealthy. The reason is that neither of these address the fundamental issues our country and planet face in the future. You cannot have a functioning capitalist society where the few own an ever increasing percentage of the wealth, that’s a recipe for Marxism to raise its ugly head. As to the planet, the impact of climate change will inexorably take its toll and the party responsible for blocking any attempts to deal with it will pay an increasing political price. It’s not something you can oops sorry on ten years from now because by then it’s too late and you’ll be to blame for failing to act.
19
Here's another Great American Patriot who in 1967 (age 25) managed to maneuver his way out of the draft with the help of Daddy, a Kentucky senator and a willing doctor. Viet Nam was not for him.
Ideological positions don't matter for McConnell, it's all about what do I have to say I believe and support to get re-elected. Which, by the way, if his ratings in Kentucky are so low, why is he getting re-elected?
McConnell and Newt Gingrich are the two guys who started the Republican Party on the long slide down to the slime pit it is today.
49
A biography of McConnell by Alec MacGillis is titled "The Cynic." That says it all.
15
It must have taken great courage to write this article. Even the prospect of reading it fills me with unquenchable spiritual nausea, as if I'd have to soil the very name of virtue itself. You see ... historians have long tried to decipher what moment or moments precipitated the fall of Rome and other great civilizations. Now we know, because we see here, featured, the cause of America's downfall. We see it every day that he disallows a vote in the Senate on the exact same bill he passed just a month before. If you want to meditate of the nature of human irrationality, meditate on that. Mitch, in my estimation, is responsible in whole or in great part with the destitution of the Senate and by his example of selfish extreme, unyielding, irrationally dogmatic hyper partisanship, the utter hobbling of Congress as a whole. We will never forget or forgive the desecration of Merrick Garland, the admitted strategy as minority leader of NEVER, NEVER, EVER... EVER... EVERRRR voting on anything, ANYTHING Obama or the Democratic majority proposed, even of they proposed basically Republican ideas. This man is litterally at non-kinetic war with 55% of America. Amd due to the undemocratic naturr of the Senate, he weilds and abuses, and acts with gross impeachable negligence on a near daily basis or whenever short term self aggrandizing expediency calls for it. Shame on him and shame on Kentucky for keepong this skeletal wrecking ball of fairness, and Senatorial tradition in office.
39
Apparently a heart, compassion, and a spine weren't on his list of wants...
14
History will not look kindly upon Mr. McConnell.
14
Some observations:
1. I followed a link tweeted by Rod Rosenstein to this article. Would love to know what he thinks about this article.
2. The GOP has been single minded in getting voters to focus on the Judiciary, and rightfully so. The courts are where the culture wars of the next 20 to 40 years will be fought. Dem voters were easily sidetracked by distractions: "Is she likable enough?" , "But, her emails." Blame the DNC distracted with derailing Sanders. They lost more than the Presidency.
3. The GOP strategically targeted and demonized Nancy Pelosi - they were right to fear her.
4. In 2020 Dems need to develop targeted messaging and come at McConnell hard - paint him as the evil, banal, amoral enemy of all that is good. Highlight the damage and pain he is responsible for inflicting on middle class and poor Americans throughout his career. For 34 years he's successfully flown under the radar. But in 2020, Mitch's destructive obstructionism and machinations need to be relentlessly featured front and center so no doubt remains with Kentucky and US voters that this vile creature must be permanently removed from the Senate.
20
I think President Obama proposed his pick for the Supreme Court — and yes, his choice languished not only because of McConnell’s obstruction. I think Hillary Clinton also put the brakes on President Obama’s nomination, claiming, behind the scenes, that it would be better for her — as the first female president — to put HER nominee on the Supreme Court.
2
He is a very shrewd politician but also one of the most despicable Congressional leaders in our nation’s history. He has done more to destroy the norms of governance and to create a contentious, polarized environment than anyone else I can recall.
20
McConnell is a major contributor to the destruction of democracy in America, where democracy is hanging by a thread. The drive for political results, at the expense of the wellbeing of the democracy, has been elevated to an art by McConnell. It is a depressing state of affairs when the Senate leader is proud of gumming up the system, installing some incompetent judges simply because they will vote party line, and dismissing the ideals of the majority of the voters. I expect history will judge McConnell even more harshly than I do but, in the meantime, we have to live with his despicable behavior.
18
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Mark 8:36
21
@Kevin Latham He’s done more than just that. He’s helped to destroy this country.
2
Whatever his accomplishments as Senate leader, history will remember McConnell as a Trump enabler. Trump's time will be brief but the threat to our democracy imposed by this president will serve as a cautionary tale for future generations. Those like McConnell, who sat idly while Trump trampled on our institutions, our national heroes and our federal workers, will always be remembered as complicit traitors.
15
I very much hope McConnell will read this and spend time thinking about it.
5
@John His own words were he doesn't spend time on futile projects. For him, a personal self evaluation would be a futile project as he believes he is riding the train to glory.
1
The rouble with interview-based pieces such as this is that they get too chummy. Or at least that' s the only possible reason I can think of that explains why Homans failed to discuss McConnell's finances and links to donors.
8
@ S North. The discussion of McConnell's finances and links to donors will be in a follow up article. Let's tell the editor that we want it.
1
I would suggest to Congress that not a dime of federal money is spent in Kentucky. Sorry to all the good people that live there but you get to suffer the consequences of your neighbors vote that is destroying this country,
10
Seems McConnell has focused his entire career on weakening the Senate, siphoning power off to the judiciary's permanent appointments not subject to elections, so his minority right of center (white male corporate dominant) force can wield unfair control over the majority that does not support these views. His carefully contained, yet undeniably smug, satisfaction is that of a traitor to representative democracy. Obstruction and placing deliberation squarely into the hands of carefully stacked courts will kill the debate and compromise spirit of democracy. McConnell's comments on Kavanaugh were especially repugnant, showing his treasonous contempt for government as something that must be worked around, not engaged in. With Trump & McConnell, Republican corruption is fully unleashed, and this supposedly free society will now remain under the control of the monarch-like clinical obsessions of unjust, self-interested individuals. The sequel to the Middle Ages has been released.
12
Mitch McConnell is the worst person in politics today, including the the president, who is the worst president in the history of anywhere.
When a "leader" defends his position with "They started it," you know you're in trouble. Leaders END things, not justify continuing them. McConnell believes in government by vendetta.
Everyone with a working brain, including McConnell, knows that the filibuster rule should be available for all issues but used sparingly as an exercise of comity. Indeed, the willingness NOT to filibuster is proof that the Senate actually has a role in negotiating legislation.
McConnell could make all this happen, but, instead, he overused the filibuster and now blames Harry Reid for doing the only thing he could do in response. But even if Reid did over-react - he didn't, but let's say he did - McConnell can STILL restore the Senate to the status quo ante bellum. If he were half the patriot he pretends to be, he would do that. But he isn't, so he doesn't.
Where's Dante when we need him?
16
Mitch McConnell: the man who sold the United States to Donald Trump for a tax cut.
14
McConnell is simply the agent of the bonkers billionaires who now run the GOP. Because 85% of Republicans are glued to their propaganda machine they are able to populate the Senate with their lackeys, among which McConnell is first among equals.
10
As a student of history and after living 60 years on this earth, I believe that the American people are the most lame people to have walked the earth. They criticize the French, but at least the French protest. They fear the Russians and Chinese, countries with populations that have a desire to learn and expand econmically, in any manner. Americans call themselves the home of the brave and yet they allow their country to be bought by Russians, Chinese and Saudis. Foreign Influence purchased through treasonous American politicians, who line their pockets with millions and send the eager, naive and ignorant poor and middle class to war, to keep their flow of money coming in.
Americans sit back and watch as old people lose their homes for unpaid medical bills and while children are slaughtered in schools. They accept the completely rigged so called Democracy, in which they no longer have a voice. As Americans blame Trump and wait for one man and his 16 attorneys, to save the republic, I say that it is the American people that destroyed Democracy. Americans get the government that they deserve. Trump and McConnell are the face of America and deservedly so.
13
What exactly did Mitch want? It seems as if the only thing he has done is destroy the integrity and ethics of the senate. It is no longer the elite branch of government that does what is best for the whole country, but rather it is a den of thieves who owe their allegiance to lobbyists.
15
"At what cost?" History will record that he is an unprincipled powermonger willing to debase the Senate, corrupt the Supreme Court and erode Constitutional norms to gain a political edge. History will record that he enabled the purchase of the US Government by the wealthy few.
11
McConnell doesn't do anything for America but what the heck does he do for Kentucky to keep getting re-elected? A couple years ago I read an article describing how he voted against legislation that would have given Kentucky coal miners an extension of their black lung benefits because it did not benefit the coal industry owners. I had to read that twice to make sure I got it. And they keep re-electing him.
19
In a hagiography of this length which extols McConnell's virtuosity in utilizing the arcane rules of the Senate to advantage an extreme partisan agenda devoid of a systemic concern for *all* Americans, I find it noteworthy that nowhere in the article do I find any expressions of care or concern by the Senator for ordinary men and women. What we see is mostly self-referential glee and satisfaction at having denied Obama a chance to govern in an ordinary manner, and having bogged down government to make it non-functional. It's hard to see value in much of this. Reminds me of the Banks spanking Obama, taking the bailout money and using 1/3 of it to give executives bonuses as their business were sinking on mountains of CDOs. There's no country anymore, only "my constituency" and the way I reward my underfunders.
16
McConnel is the poster boy for why we need term limits for legislators so that some legislator, who I cannot vote for, from over there cannot make my life over here, in NYC, miserable in perpetuity.
11
Thank you, I wanted to know more about this man. What wasn't said is the agenda he so skillfully rammed down our throats hurts more people than it helps. He has hijacked the government to serve his minority. He didn't sell his soul to work with the crude man in the White House. Next time tell us more about where and when he lost his soul.
14
The day he got away with his Merick Garland gambit is the day our government began to crumble and the rule of law disappeared from the land.
19
I wish we Democrats had someone as conniving as McConnell on our side. I also wish we'd been as laser-focused on seating non right-wing judges.
1
Legend? Place in history?
Well, how about the most obstructionist in recent history? Remember how he declared his agenda for the next four years when Obama was elected President? Just to make him a one-time president. And then how he stole Obama (i.e. us the public) his right to appoint a justice (shame on Reid for making it possible).
These are not the characteristics of a legendary law maker. Rather of someone who has total disregard to the democratic principles and a shrewd and tactical (the "great tactician") power grabber.
11
I have called the Speaker's D.C. office several times over the past 2 years and always ask the staffer answering the phone whether McConnell is Russian (because he consistently acts in THEIR interests, i.e., by destroying our "democracy" and supporting the president of CHAOS). He and Grassley are too OLD and too white MALE. The whole Merrick/Kavanaugh thing is all on MITCH. No one in my family will ever vote Republican again. They are dead to us. McConnell has no one but himself to blame.
5
Thank you for this. While possible to use this analysis as fodder for cynicism it is equally read as support for hope. With the temerity of a long view and patience, I now understand we can rebuild faith in US institutions which has been categorically eroded in my lifetime.
1
The question ought to be, "At what cost to our country?"
7
The man is a walking breathing argument in favor of congressional term limits.
15
Sen. McConnell is a consummate career politician, unmatched in acumen as a DC insider.
His constituency is perfectly ok with that.
2
In the midst of this article is an argument for campaign reform. McConnell is correct: people cannot get noticed and get elected without money, In our system that means toadying up to potential contributors with very deep pockets - and very high expectations.
It is also correct that fear of losing access to campaign financing is why there is little hard core support for reform, including among many who give this lip service.
The only way it will happen is for voters to get very, very angry and organized, and hound Representatives and Senators. Threats to deny support at the primary level might have more leverage, since pols know that at the regular election, faced with other issues, voters will pick someone in the party they support regardless of their support for reform.
9
McConnell's pride in gaining control makes him much more like Trump than he would like to know.
Yesterday, Eugene Robinson summed up Trump's visible philosophy of governing as " cruelty for cruelty's sake." It doesn't matter how many others get hurt by your actions, or what damage you do to the country, as long as you win. It appears that is the mysterious link between the two seemingly dissimilar men.
McConnell thinks that his exercise of power is shrewd, and is proud of thwarting Obama's judicial nominees, and proud of defunding government programs though the tax cut for billionaires. If oligarchs to end up in complete control of the government, they may indeed praise him.
But to anyone who has a vision of the country which includes the welfare of the 99% - will curse his actions. Trump tweets, and McConnell mutely endorses, policies which split the country, and leave many ever more vulnerable.
24
Trump is like a spoiled 3 year-old who's been indulged one too many times. He's fixated on a certain toy a.k.a. the wall and he will continue to throw tantrums until he gets it.
His enablers, namely McConnell and all the other GOP members of Congress are the ones to blame for this mess. They lack the spines required to stand up to Trump. They have chosen party over country, and have abdicated their responsibility of being an independent counterbalance to the executive branch. They are reaping what they have sowed.
15
The cost? His soul. He can now be said, without exaggeration, to believe in nothing, to stand for nothing. He sold out his party, his state, his country, his faith, and whatever principles he may have once claimed.
He is a national disgrace.
32
McConnell embodies the banality of evil. Mild-mannered, disciplined, characterless, ‘doing his duty’. Books will be written about this tragic man, but not the ones that he imagines.
32
McConnell will be remembered by history primarily for the obstructionism of the Obama presidency, culminating in the seditious treatment of the Merrick Garland Court nomination - a plain negligent abrogation of Constitutional duty for political gamesmanship. A fitting presagement to the Trump era, when political civility, political tradition, and government's institutional 'culture' of a shared respect for the traditions and norms of United States democracy were all thrown down the drain. Trump has run reckless, messy, and ignorant over the institutions of American democracy - and McConnell has firmly established himself as the number-one enabler of Trump's predations. When history evaluates Trump's fumbling and bumbling presidency, McConnell will share the shame and burden of failure, but in Trump's case it is obvious that he knows no better how to govern, how to manage, or what the conventions he destroys represent. McConnell cannot claim this excuse. McConnell has knowingly, mendaciously aided Trump's reckless abuse of our democracy for his own sordid political power games. History will not, and should not, be gentle, respectful or kind to McConnell. He's earned every bit of the damnation he will get.
31
Did he really get everything he wanted? Not!
But, the cost for nothing was all for us.
He'll be forgotten quickly.
5
It is truly revolting to learn that McConnell wanted the author to read his anti-apartheid speech in which McConnell said, “Conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, can and should act in unison." It is revolting because when Barack Obama ran for President and promised bi-partisanship McConnell figured that was one thing he could deny Obama. And that is all McConnell did, for eight long, miserable, obstructionist years, up to and including Obama's nomination of a modest and centrist judge named Merrick Garland, a peace offering to the Republican Senator if there ever was one. In order for McConnell's obstructionism to work he had to have every Republican painting a caricature of Obama as the worst President ever, with the worst ideas ever. That is what McConnell will be remembered for -- not for civility and decency, not for tax cuts for the rich, and not deregulation -- but rather for cynicism and demonization of a Democratic president, for hatred and obstructionism, which is all too easy to return. McConnell legacy is turning a bad partisanship divide into an abyss.
29
@Sherry Totally agree and believe he should be impeached.
2
At what cost? His soul.
10
McConnell is guilty of directly Colluding with Trump and should be removed for failing the oath he took. His job is to present to the president legislation that has passed the Senate.
If the president vetoes, SO BE IT. That is how the LAW works.
To pick and choose is certainly a violation of the oath he took
Shame on him. Up for re-election in 2020. Hmmmmm.
15
McConnell's legacy: the chief architect of the dismantlement of our democracy. The fact that such power could remain in the hands of this human malignancy for so long does not bode well for our future.
16
Mitch McConnell is as close to everything that is wrong in our country today as anyone. His first remark upon election of Barack Obama was to "make him a one term president." Actually, no it wasn't, it was to make laws for the betterment of society, solid accomplishments with his conservative bent. But being in the minority for two years all he did was stonewall. A toddler can say no. He should have been paid in cookies.
He's not a patriot, he's not even a good legislator, he simply has been around long enough to jam up the system. He's self-serving, self-dealing and gives allegiance only to his large base of donors as he does their bidding. They have him by the soft bits and no doubt his discomfort has long ago been brushed aside for his fake hold on power.
Because in reality, he has none. He is beholden to many, none of whom care about him any more than he cares about America. Both are simply expedient.
17
Mitch McConnell is not well thought of right here, right now, in the present. So he probably doesn't care too much about how he will be thought of in the future, when other people are just as busy in their pursuits as he is now, in the game of obstruction in favor of the rich.
5
I was a student of Dr. Browning’s in college, and I still see him on occasion. He is not a cynic, and is a warm-hearted person who demonstrates with clear eyes the manner in which we should examine the past in order to evaluate the present and plan for the future. Knowing him, it shook me to see his words in the article mentioned, and I would recommend everyone read it. He is not given to hyperbole.
McConnell may yet get away with his gambles, but if he does, he does so playing with the not only the lives of Americans but the future of democracy on Earth. History will show him not as a shrewd bargainer and brinksman, but as someone who was wiling to gamble our the institutions that ensure our safety and stability for what will surely be short-term gain.
The “long game” indeed. What a fool.
20
This article beautifully exhibits how undemocratic the USA system is. The electoral system. The political judiciary that crushes the very idea of Equal justice under law if the Senate and the president are failing like they fail now. The way billionaires can just buy the members of Congress. The minority ruling of old conservative people. An unfit president that could operate as a dictator if he/she wants.
So: is Mitch McC a GOOD PERSON or just a clever AUTOCRAT who will be judged harshly by history? Clearly the latter.
13
Kentucky and other small reactionary states have an inordinate influence over our country.
The result is a lack of progress.
The Founders unknowingly planted seeds of destruction with a Kentucky having equal amounts of senators as NY and California.
12
A man like McConnell has no business being the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. The role of the Senate, and Congress as a whole, is diminished when a man kowtows to the president to the point of refusing to bring legislation to the floor of the Senate that the president won't sign. That is an abdication of his responsibilities, and a crushing blow to the concept of government embodied in the U.S. Constitution.
14
He's a folksier version and direct descendant of the original architect of all of this: Newt Gingrich. 100% partisan, unapologetic, unforgiving, unrelenting, and self-righteous. His only mission is to get the so called 'conservative' (which really should be called 'radical') way.
He's doesn't even consider 'country', it's about party. It's not about people, it's about hard-line positions that the base wants. It's not about what's best, it's about executing a playbook based on (corrupt) ideology. It's about seeking to deliver for the 'right', not what is right. Most often it's unconscionable.
What's ironic is that at one point not that long ago, the republican party billed itself as the party of 'family values' and some sort of moral character. It is the furthest thing from that now. Every single day more people are suffering from the consequences of this man and what he has orchestrated. He may look like Mrs. Doubtfire but the fury he has unleashed is that of evil, at work through his human hands.
26
Well, Mitch got everything he and a handful of Republicans wanted while destroying the traditions of the Senate, so there's your "cost." The final straw, of course, was his refusal to give Merrick Garland even a hearing, virtually guaranteeing that the Dems will give it back to the R's in spades when the tables turn. This, and the fact that he gives Trump a pass on everything, makes his legacy one of overseer to the demise of democracy.
18
Mitch is the other face for everything trump stand for , he carries on trump agenda .
He is the one who put the entire Supreme Court on hold when Obama try to nominate one judge he is the one who stop the entire country from passing anything in the last 2 or 3 years during Obama terms.
He doesn’t care period.
8
He has been hiding throughout the shutdown and he is putting everything on the president. If he is as wily a politician as depicted here, he could of course engineer a veto over-ride if needed. But he will have to take some of the blame for the terrible effects of a shutdown, while at the same time he gives a pass to a Russian oligarch by approving the lifting of sanctions. He got this passed but would not lift a finger to get the US Coast Guard paid.
11
I have no regard for McConnell. He tipped his cap when, after Obama was elected, he said that his sole goal was to get Obama out of Washington.
With regard to the present impasse, he has also shown that he does not understand the constitution. If he had a sense of humanity over his own ambitions he would work with Pelosi to construct reasonable legislation to secure funding, including border security, that would get passed in the House and Senate. And be committed to it, so when Trump vetos it, and it came back to Congress they could over ride the veto. It is that simple.
McConnell has served his time and should walk away, the same cowardly way Ryan did, and let serious folk do the business of this country.
12
What mcCONnell, leonard Leo and trump have done by getting in their highly PARTISAN CONservative judges pushed through (most especially in the Supreme Court) is the biggest impediment to fair elections and progress in Our Country with regard to environmental problems, and help for the poor.
The terrible citizens united decision by the Supreme Court was pushed and decided by partisan republican appointees, as was the highly partisan bush v gore decision which wrongfully gave bush the presidency even though he lost the popular vote; Florida should have completed their recount.
Republicans can not win elections fairly so they rely on voter suppression, claims of voter fraud, and other cheating tactics. Which they have done for decades, going back to Lee Atwater's tenure as dirty tricks strategist and republican campaign guru.
Having successfully packed the highest and lower courts with republican partisans (despite claims of "we leave politics aside when putting on the judicial robes") they've "'won". WE, who want fair elections, a protected environment, etc., are forced to fight tooth and nail for everything progressive knowing that the 'deck is stacked', playing field isn't level, and that there's a republican thumb on most scales. The ONLY meaningful solution is for Democrats to regain and retain control of the Senate, and presidency and House for the next generation at least.
It may be as long as three decades before many republican judges retire or die.
12
Anytime he could use his power for the good, he disappoints - a totally partisan politician with 0 empathy for the masses, totally caught up in the political game of winning and losing. So what if he knows history, or the Senate's inner workings or its rules of procedure, je is not an impressive individual and not in good faith.
7
It’s very simple Senator McConnell, the shutdown ends when you pull the country ahead of politics and allow a clean bill to reopen the government. Twist a few arms if needed but get a veto proof majority and the crisis is over.
Do the right thing - now!
7
McConnell’s legacy will be this: he failed to lead when the country cried out for moral leadership. McConnell chose political expediency at the expense of moral courage. He will be known as a shrewd political tactician, but a man who used that skill to undermine our democratic principles. McConnell continues to kowtow to Trump on the government shutdown, knowing it is bad for the country. He is not a leader; he is a follower, and by doing so he enables Trump.
17
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
Oaths aren't what they used to be.
13
That part about “evasion” really stands out about now.
2
It is deeply disturbing someone with no conscience and strong undemocratic tendencies can wield so much power within our government. Senator McConnell cleverly subverts the political norms which support America’s democracy without attacking the Constitution itself. What makes his violation even more sinister is how much he relishes this achievement.
11
The most striking - and enduring - casualty of the 2016 elections is the federal judiciary. Thanks, Mitch.
8
The U.S. now desperately needs functioning governance. Trump's first two economically good years were made possible by the strong economy that he inherited. Major crises are looming that will test the institutional capacity of the U.S. with a W.H. with a deep shortage of necessary capacity and with multiple reports of management chaos.
The American people have elected a divided Congress with Democrats controlling the House. President Trump had the opportunity to challenge the Democrats to address fixing the Nation's infrastructure, which is an area opportunity for significant cooperation to serve the American people. Trump has chosen the path of fear rather than cooperation. He manipulates the fears of his base to try to force the Congress to become a rubber stamp rather than a co-equal institution. Fearful of investigations from the Democrats he seeks to break the will of the institution of Congress by appealing to fear to impose his will for $5.7 billion of additional budget for border security.
This article points to unsuspected sophistication on the part of Senate Leader McConnell who appears to be seeking to achieve a vote reflecting on stopping the government shutdown based on genuine compromise. Not the compromise offered by VP Pence but rather a compromise that strengthens the institution of the Congress. We can hope it works, because this Congress is not of a mind to become a rubber stamp for Trump.
4
"I never would have been able to win my race,” (McConnell) wrote of his first Senate election...“if there had been a limit on the amount of money I could raise and spend.”
That sums up the role of money in politics, friends, and explains much of why this country's democracy is in a shambles right now.
Thanks are due in no small part to Mr. McConnell, who paved the way for soft money in politics - all so that he could realize his ambition of being a US Senator.
25
It wasn't all just to be a senator.
He was also able to enjoy some really fine meals in some of Washington's best restaurants.
It was for that too.
7
Is there anybody out there with a GOOD word about Mitch McConnell? After scrolling through all the comments here, I would have expected at least one mention of something positive he's done during all his years in the Senate. Not even one?
55
Do YOU have anything good to say about McConnell? IMHO, any good he might have done has been obliterated by the harm he has done, although he would not consider it as harm.
2
@wildermensch scroll below for Girish Kotwal
Louisville, KY
@wildermensch
Doesn't that tell you something? Why would you expect one mention of something positive? He has shown his true colors the past 2 years, and the last month in particular. He is single-handedly keeping the Senate from voting on House Bills to re-open the government and enabling Trump. He is a traitor and history will link him with Trump.
Nothing good to say.
5
McConnell played Trump on the Judicial nominees. McConnell was the one who put them in place, except for Kavanaugh. He was wise enough to let Trump take the credit. Yet, his place in history may fall with that of Trump. It matters not though, as the damage to our country has been done. The writer is correct, the right wing courts will now be the ones to shape the future of our country. And, as has already been seen by their rulings, that shape will leave everyone, to the whim of corporate ruling class.
70
Trump , his administration of inept lackeys and mcconnell and the rest of the gop are traitors to the core. A president of our country is being ruled by talking heads at the fox network and the kremlin. Because those in the gop are silent in this travesty that makes them traitors! Trump’s wall is nothing more than something that greases his ego. This is reprehensible. And those of us who see this travesty for what it is needs to let the gop know they are traitors! Traitors to the core!
86
Nothing good happens if people don't vote... for Democrats (and for others to stop wasting their vote on useless, clueless third party candidates who can not win in our flawed two party system).
Jill Stein and Gary Johnson voters HELPED trump get his electoral college "victory". Ralph Nader helped propel Bush over Gore and the Scalia led republicans on the Supreme Court sealed that deal. Nader will never be forgiven for that and for his lying claim that Democrats and republicans are the "same".
5
Christopher Browning, UNC Professor of History and renowned authority on the holocaust under Nazi dominion, has written that McConnell will be remembered in history as the chief 'gravedigger of American democracy." Edmund Burke or no.
112
What a country
10
What a loathsome, despicable little man. History will remember him as a villain.
104
That is if history remembers him at all and that will depend on whether Democracy is destroyed for just a short period of time or impeachment happens first. If the former, Mitchell will be a footnote in history — a dictator enabler, if the latter, he will certainly be forgotten in 10-20 years. The GOP is finished as a legit political party. In the future, they will be quoted as Mitchell quotes the Whig in this story.
5
My European friends are scratching their heads. If this were France, the country would be under a general strike. They don't understand how we can let a criminal president and his enablers continue to hold power and why we aren't raising holy hell in the streets.
83
@Bronwyn
Decades of anti union sentiment, emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic under No Child Left Behind. Many schools spent little to no time on science or history. Many
People have no idea what a general strike is. I haven’t figured out why the white collar and blue collar unions haven’t attempted to unify into a one day strike. This could be their opportunity to cement the importance and strength of unions. Most people think that what is happening to govt. employees and contractors is unjust.
44
It’s easy to strike or protest when you have the real right to do so. We only manage it on the weekend - the French don’t have to worry about losing their jobs in quite the same way - they have social supports that give them more freedom. Although should also ask your friend how things are going over there with the gilets jaunes - much less coverage here but still lots if vandalism happening over there
7
@Bronwyn admittedly, not a bad idea. I've heard it floated about today by others. Everyone walk off their jobs for a few days in solidarity.
1
It is puzzling that a man who spent his life aspiring to be a senator should, as leader of the senate, put so much work into detouring his party's agenda around the senate and into the courts.
Is he really so hell-bent on destroying the power of the institution he claims to cherish?
39
@Charles Trentelman I think he sees the power of the Senate as it currently constitutes itself to be less stable and enduring than the power of federal courts, especially the SCOTUS but including Circuit & District courts too, whose members are given *lifetime appointments.* if you can, during your control of the Senate, replace 2/3 or more of sitting federal judges with doctrinaire men and women in good health, in their 40’s or even 30’s, chances are good they will be ruling in favor of your agenda and against the other side’s for the better part of a century, long after you have retired from the Senate. Elections are fickle things, and the last 40 years suggests Americans are more and more uninclined to keep voting in one-party governments for any appreciable length of time. Federal Judges may not be, like diamonds, “forever”, but they’re the closest thing you can find in a society that votes for its government.
3
I recall Trump observing early on after his election how he was stupefied by the number of employees our federal government paid to operate the departments created to serve us. His exact words escape me, but he has learned nothing since. Fire all of them, I hear him screaming , ' who needs them ?'
8
The exact moment that Mitch McConnell sold his soul will probably never be known to us, but an educated guess is that the year was 1984, when the person most responsible for getting him elected to the Senate in the first place was a media adviser named Roger Ailes. So the rest was to be expected.
74
This attempt at a nuanced picture of Mitch McConnel is unnecessary. He has done more damage to our politics than anyone in recent memory.
He is an obstructionist, plain and simple, and does not belong in the US Senate.
93
Couldn’t agree more. How he could pick up a pay check for doing nothing during the Obama administration is beyond me. My blood boils when I think of him and I believe he is worse than Trump.
6
I suspect McConnell would like the world to think of him as a ten dimensional chess player. The only problem is Mitch cheats and doesn’t play by the rules more principled senators have traditionally honored. If he really did decide that he wanted to be a senator when he was in high school how sad it is that he broke the senate and made it impossible for it to function as a legislative body.
61
@Ellyn The ambition to become a Senator in high school before any real experience of the world betrays a pure will to power untethered to principle. It is the essence of sociopathy.
2
First of all, any Congress that fails to tax for all the legislation they pass that needs funding, should not be in Congress. The second point is that even if there aren't term limits, if you have served two Senate terms of 6 years, or 6, two year terms in the House of Representatives, you should be a gentleman, or gentlewoman, or gentleperson, and leave. The third point is that there shouldn't be any pensions for anyone serving in elected or appointed government, including the former Presidents. This government, of which there are currently many who have been there several decades, or more, are the ones that gave us almost $22 trillion in debt, and another promised $30 trillion in underfunded mandates over the nest 30 years, that they have failed to deal with, because they have their piece of the borrowed pie. The citizens of this country, not so much.
33
thank you Mr McConnell for being the worst Senate majority leader in recent history. With no backbone and no agenda other than power for powers sakes you've set a truly low bar.
60
Just want to applaud this article. It seems like almost everything I read in the news lately seems like a biased opinion. It is refreshing to read an article that is information not someone trying to make up my mind for me. Thank you.
8
@Joseph Why am I not surprised that the only non-mudslinging comment I've seen here came from a New Mexican.
And I have to agree, its nice to get the facts and feel as if the author respects our intelligence and wants us to make up our own minds about what they're presenting. The media needs more of this instead of the faux outrage for clicks that seems to fuel most of their output anymore no matter the political slant.
Senator Mitch McConell's dream was not to be the president of the US but to be the senate majority leader. He has been an effective senate majority leader in what has been accomplished from the stand point of his party and his president. Half the nation probably does not think much of McConnell but history will reflect the changes that McConnell contributed to. Not since the birth of Lincoln in Hodgenville Kentucky has there been as significant a political Kentuckian as Sen Mitch McConnell.
Ironically Sen Chuck Schummer was invited last year to give the McConnell lecture at the McConnell Center in Louisville, KY. It was clear to anyone who listened to the lecture that Chuck and Mitch have mutual respect for each other and the difference are just along party lines. Last year it was quite a sight to see the president give McConnell a nudge to assist him up the steps of the white house after a press conference. That was the first time I came to know the human side of McConnell who had polio in his child hood that left him with some difficulty walking up stairs.
Chuck and Mitch have shown that whatever differences they may have on the senate floor they cannot stop being decent human beings outside the senate. So yes Mitch without raising his voice or his finger has got everything he wants. Will he get reelected the next time he runs out of his current term. I predict yes. Not very often one of the poorest states can say we have 2 of the most prominent senators in the US.
3
And yet still the state is poor. Might consider a shift in public policy.
4
@Girish Kotwal
Mitch McConnell will reside somewhere in the vicinity of Bennedict Arnold in the history books. They both had their big splash, they both thought they were right, and they both did their damage.
5
It’s funny and quite telling that you’d predict that Mitch would be elected to the senate once again because the poor state of Kentucky would choose bragging rights of political power over political action that would lift the poor state out of poverty.
5
To me, Senator McConnell represents those that want to protect and increase their advantages at the expense of the country as a whole. He opposed campaign finance reform and (tellingly) the only Obama initiative he supported was the TPP. He and his fellow senators rushed thru deficit busting tax breaks for the wealthy that they lied would pay for themselves. He tried to eliminate Obamacare (disliked only for its added taxes) without any alternative plan. He is the antithesis of Senator John McCain.
31
“It would be hard to find two people by personality, or any inclination, that are more diametrically opposed than the president and Senator McConnell,” says Roy Blunt
irrelevant. where they do agree is in their staggering greed and the lengths they'll go to accumulate that and keep their grip on power. neither care about the country or the people they swore to serve.
42
no way out for mitch. the constitution puts the govt, except for the military, in congress' hands. they pass x to open the govt, trump vetoes, they over-ride. him saying that he will only bring up what trump approves of, denies this principle and he knows it. mr. dis-ingenuous
15
Senator Mitch McConnell not even calling a vote for Merrick Garland is all I need to know. Win at all costs. In doing so he's destroyed civility and respect for norms.
Him and Newt Gingrich did more to splinter this country than anyone. Sad. Trump is just an effect. They were the catalysts.
76
I was just writing an essay on this very subject. (Disclaimer: I am not a Constitutional scholar - just a citizen who is researching Senate rules on www.senate.gov.) Here's an excerpt.
"Why does the Majority Leader, who after all was elected only by the citizens of Kentucky, have the great and sole power to allow bills on the Senate floor? Is he wiser than the 534 other legislators in Congress? Is the Leader by law meant to be the final gatekeeper of all national debate? Is this a Constitutional role?
The answer to all these questions is no. Mitch McConnell’s power is based solely upon Senate custom. From senate.gov:
"By precedent, majority and minority leader are recognized preferentially, and by custom only the Leader (or his designee) makes motions or requests affecting when the Senate will meet and what it will consider. Individual senators can also place a "hold" on a measure indicating objection, although this practice is not recognized in Senate rules. The leader will usually not even consider a measure if there is a hold on it."
These customs form the flimsy foundation which gives McConnell control.
Why should a Senate procedural custom take precedence over the chamber meeting its Constitutional duty to write law and pass budgets? Senators swear to defend and protect our Constitution, and by implication to facilitate Congress's operation - not protect Mitch McConnell's privileges."
I welcome expert feedback.
23
You write: "Why does the Majority Leader, who after all was elected only by the citizens of Kentucky, have the great and sole power to allow bills on the Senate floor? Is he wiser than the 534 other legislators in Congress? Is the Leader by law meant to be the final gatekeeper of all national debate? Is this a Constitutional role? The answer to all these questions is no. Mitch McConnell’s power is based solely upon Senate custom."
Very good (legal / constitutional) point which the article misses completely. High time that Congress changes its habits and modernises its precedents. If not, the USA will face a constitutional crisis that might shock the world very soon. Too many people are left behind by the billionaires who need to protect themselves behind walls or steel slats or in gated communities. Unthinkable in Europe that civil servants are not paid because of a shutdown. McCoward can end it if he so wants. And what about the greatest threats: the environmental policies and international policy of Trump/Republicans? Democratic? Human? Ethical? No, currently the USA is acting stupid, dangerous and irresponsible. USA, China, Russia: the mightiest countries are the worst governed and have an institutional setup that must be improved bigly.
I cannot tell whether the author wants to paint a pleasing portrait of McConnell or in some sly way wants to make us see the dark machinations of a political operative. Whichever it is, McConnell presents a toxic vision. Using Trump to advance his agenda he has undermined the balance of right and left in the judicial and executive branches to our future detriment. I also find his photograph (the first one in the article) to be disturbing. Is there a hint of a smile - or is it a smirk? Perhaps, this Hamlet quotation seems to fit: "That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
18
Quoting from this very detailed, well written article (thank you, btw):
When McConnell endorsed Trump in May 2016, after the last of his plausible challengers collapsed, he did it with a terse written statement in which the gritting of teeth was practically audible: “I have committed to supporting the nominee chosen by Republican voters,” it read, “and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee, is now on the verge of clinching that nomination.”
This is just one of many, many examples demonstrating that McConnelI, himself, is *aware* that his moral compass is broken. And he tries to deal with the other one who is unaware or simply doesn't care.
The article asks, "At what cost?" In my opinion the answer is that the US has lost its moral authority.
20
Sadly, Senator McConnell typifies a behavior of too many political actors these days, an absolute vacuum of principle with no discernible values except his own survival. He would do well to review the oath he took upon entering public office and see if he could summon the courage to honor it by voting to open the government and let Trump veto a bill that has already passed his chamber if Trump must. Let the process operate as it was designed. He is not a leader. He is a small minded political tactician and certainly no patriot. Hopefully, he will soon be gone - good riddance.
29
All hail "alternative facts," starting and ending with this one: McConnell, who regards himself as "a man of institutions," is perhaps the single most destructive force in the institutional history of the U.S. Senate. He doesn't need the demagogue in the White House to burn down the establishment; he does it all by himself. He has torched democracy and that will be his legacy.
26
Mitch McConnell has done more damage to the Republic than almost any foreign adversary could hope to. History will not be kind to him. Two words: Merrick Garland.
25
Mr. McConnell may have gotten everything he wanted, but I hope gets everything he deserves.
43
My dream is to get some folks together, and we hand write poignant letters to each registered voter in Kentucky, asking them kindly to not vote for Mitch McConnell again. We mail them.
17
Clearly McConnell is by his own lights, a man of the Senate. While his passive-aggressive style was perfect for combating Obama and is his last ditch effort to use Trump to his own ends, I wonder how he feels about American institutions when he realizes that he's enabled a coup d'etat in which Ann Coulter has decided US policy.
17
Which way is the wind blowing?
This fiend lies among the lowest of politicians.
What does he care about? Getting re-elected. That’s about it.
Despite denying Merrill Garland a vote and crowing about it, his worst offense may be refusing to bring funding legislation that would end the shutdown to the floor for a vote.
Whatever good he may have done in the past has been offset doubly by his recent behavior.
7
@Steve Ell Pray tell, what good was that? Ensuring multinational corporate domination over the rest of us serfs by ensuring any attempt at regulating their money and influence met a dead end? Obstructing everything a President did to try to create a better environment for everyone?
I don't think he knows what doing good is. I really don't.
4
It was obvious from the beginning what a wrongdoer he is. This character feature should have been done a long time ago.
8
thank-you, well written summary and as fair as it can be for us to see what it all really means......
I still see moral compromises that cost not only wasting money, but unnecessary hardship for the everyday American and, indeed, the everyday humans of the entire world.
The most important question that was not really addressed is will people like Mitch McConnell ever see what damage they have done to the future. They might be gone by the time things get worse and hopefully never globally collapse.
Mr. McConnell might know history but has he learned it lessons. I humbly think not for he has not spent enough time in considering procedures versus humanity. Passion is not his though focus is. I would say to him " Thank-you for your service trying " and we will carry on for there is much damage to repair.
In short, Mr. McConnell was somewhat evolutionary where at times we needed a bit more revolutionary actions for time does not wait for anyone and no one can do anything on their own even if they be good leaders.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Senate may withhold a vote for a nominee until a President more to the majority's liking is elected.
Likewise, nowhere in the Constitution is it written that the Senate may refrain from holding an appropriations vote until a bill comes along that is to the President's liking.
This cannot be a representative democracy if the representatives are not allowed to vote.
53
For me, this piece had great promise and timeliness, especially after the NYT's excellent Harry Reid profile a few weeks back. I'd hoped that, in it's own way, it'd shed an equivalent amount of light.
But having now slogged through, I'm disappointed that the journalist didn't get a more consistent grip on the lamp.
I can't claim to know how difficult it is for the journalist to get access to these high profile people, much less get them on the record. But as a citizen, I'll take substance and insight over a display of splendid access.
I loved the insights on Senator McConnell's dedicated and ruthless gamesmanship, his remarkable accomplishments, his baldfaced hypocrisy, and his frighteningly narrow vision. For me, those were the best part.
But too many of the quotes from James Mattis, John Kelly, assorted senators and staffers clouded the piece. And they enabled McConnell's invisible hand to continue guiding the narrative. (He's such a wily master of the Senate!")
11
A fascinating and revealing interview. Kudos to Mr. Homans for exploring this man’s mind. Credit to the Times for publishing this. And, credit due, to the Senator for revealing his mindset.
It is terrifying for our democracy.
45
Claire McCaskill was on MSNBC today, and when asked why McConnell does what he does, she responded that it was because he wanted to be leader of the Senate and continues to do what he does to keep that job. Nothing more, nothing less.
Apparently, he has no other goals or objectives for the United States. He just wants the power of that position. He needs to be voted out by his constituents and in lieu of that by his colleagues in the Senate.
66
That is why it was just as important to regain the Senate as well.
Congress may hold the purse strings, but the Senate gets confirm appointments, and you must admit, there have been some extraordinarily awful ones. Many of them are already gone, but their replacements don't offer much comfort. Mitch McConnell has too much power and he has abused it mightily. He barely won his last election. Let's hope when he is up again in 2020 that the votes finally the other way.
46
McConnell will likely leave office with a lower approval rating than the 12% his partner-in-crime Paul Ryan achieved.
McConnell could bring his own Senate bills (passed by the House) and already passed unanimously by the Senate up for a vote at any time and end the shutdown.
He chooses not to do so.
Anyone with a security clearance must maintain a good credit rating to keep their security. How long before the lack of pay causes FBI and others working without pay to default on bills?
Soon, many of those with security clearances will lose them. While Putin would love to destroy the FBI, and Trump is eager to do whatever Putin wants, it is yet as clear that McConnell is as much under Putin's thumb.
Unless McConnell ends the shutdown soon, assume he works for Putin.
62
The cost can be broadly defined as: he doesn't care, and he won't be paying.
61
Somewhere, sometime, history will not look kindly on Mr. McConnell. In the meantime, he will do whatever it takes to hold onto power. In the end, I think Trump may cast him aside.
64
@RM: History—or at least current events—isn't looking kindly on him right now!
1
@RM
Dump McConnell? Well, that is precisley what must happen if America is to survive. Between McConnell and Trump by the time they get done ripping this country to shreds, it will be unrecognizable. Trump is on his way, with the help of Mitch McConnell and the GOP, to creating the America he ranted about at his inaguration. The America Trump was describing on that awful day wasn't the America President Barack Obama handed off to him, but it is the America Trump is creating, slowly but surely, and our representatives are letting him do it.
2
@RM Trump did just that when the Senate voted on a bill to keep government open, a bill Trump told McConnell he supported until Ann Coulter bullied him and he backed off. We're here now because Donald Trump is terrified by Ann Coulter and she's laughing all the way to the bank. Two men, arguably the most powerful men in the world, on their knees before a crazed Twitter tirade. It would be laughable if not for the real pain it's causing to so many.
2
“Far be it from me to complain about obstruction,” he told me, permitting himself a chuckle. “But generally, when I’ve been involved in obstruction, there was a point to it.” It hasn't been difficult to determine what his "point" is. His point is concentrated in a driving determination to subjugate the work of one of the bodies of tripartite government to the will of party and ideology. His entire career has been devoted to undermining the republic's work; he will be remembered for the damage he has caused to to this country.
138
@PAGirl46
McConnell will be remembered for what he did. Obama will be remembered only for what he was.
2
Obama will be remembered as someone who cared about ordinary Americans and their children regardless of what they thought of him.
McConnell will be remembered as someone who cared only for the power he could acquire for himself, regardless of the expense to ordinary Americans and their children.
2
@Mark Shyres
If we’re comparing apples to apples, McConnell toasts Obama as a politician. In the end, Obama was more concerned with policy and reluctant to engage in the political battles that make for successful and sustainable policy. His fatal flaw, if you will. As a result, most of his policies defaulted to executive orders; never a legacy producing strategy.
My focus in my response to this article was not Pres. Obama, but Mitch McConnell. As a political leader par excellence, Mitch has probably succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. That said, I believe McConnell’s political shenanigans will not weather the test of time, as I believe Pres. Obama’s actions will. Historical perspective views the past through rose-colored glasses. Obama’s name will be remembered while McConnell’s will be a mere footnote in history.
As a life long civil servant Senator McConnell deserves appreciation however his legacy will be so intertwined with Donald Trump that history will not be kind. As the administration goes crashing down because of all the lies, half truths, shut downs, false promises, tariffs and utter chaos he will be swept away as well. How sad our government has become and Mitch McConnell is right at the top of the hill.
36
@JOHN
He is deserving only of disapproval, and under the right circumstances, prosecution.
14
I blame Mitch McConnell for so much that is wrong with government today and lack of governing. He’s smart enough to know that everything he has done for many years is wrong, and that he is as responsible as Trump for ma y of the problems of today. Will the people of Kentucky please vote him out already? What are you waiting for?
111
@Pala Chinta
On the other hand, could it be that our government is to blame for so much that is wrong with Mitch McConnell today?
@Pala Chinta McConnell has a machine in Kentucky that can take down any opposition. Even so, it was probably closer than he imagined and possibly why he's so terrified of offending Trump's base.
1
His Republican Party has cornered itself, with a distinct minority of voters but most of the political power.
This has happened before. Najib did it in Malaysia, grabbing billions for himself and cronies and even killing investigators and anyone else who threatened to blab before voters, amazingly, turned him out last spring. (Google 'Mongolian girlfriend' for one lurid example.) The Alewites have run Syria for 60 years, despite holding only 10 percent of the population, by killing hundreds of thousands.
What this takes is not just the cunning to seize power, which McConnell has amply demonstrated. It takes the utter ruthlessness to hold onto it. For example, he could have found a way to install Erik Prince's Blackwater mercenaries in the White House as a contract security force.
And that's where this would-be tyrant falls short. No more than a toady, really, he needs someone to give him orders.
21
McConnell is an obstructionist. He has sold out the American people in favor of personal politics. And I realize that some people might say all politics is personal. History will not judge him well, but I suspect he does not care.
97
If the dems can take back the senate and he's still there, they should impeach him for derilection of duty for the Merrick Garland fiasco. I still can't believe that he pulled that. Shame on all the other rep senators who sat idly by.
He is a horror of a human being. I'm glad that my fellow NYT readers all get that Citizen's United was the real boon for him. I think he could care less about Rov V Wade.
80
@Sam
AGREE! That said, I don't think Schumer has the backbone to make that happen.
5
McConnell is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America. He takes money from some of the worst people in the country and does their bidding in the senate. Doesn't care a hoot about citizens of this country or, for that matter, citizens of Kentucky. The sooner he's out of office, the better.
73
"Mitch McConnell Got Everything He Wanted. But at What Cost?"
This could all go away if the republicans in the senate would confront Mitch McConnell and demand that he bring the house bills to the floor for a vote, pass them, as would then happen and, if Trump doesn't sign them or veto's them, pass them again with a 2/3rds majority in both houses of congress.
I've written my two republican senators, but, as expected, haven't had a peep of a reply from either of them. McConnell and these republican senators are ruining the American economy at the same time they are allowing Trump to use federal employees as his bargaining chips and that is absolutely wrong, despicable and immoral.
This is OUR GOVERNMENT and Trump and the republicans are trashing it. We have a General Election in less than two years and it will be remembered just how bad Trump and the republicans treated the federal employees, the contract employees, our country, business and farmers, other organizations funded by Our Government and our economy.
Trump's and McConnell's shutdown is a fraud and an exhibit of their mutual cruelty to all those who are suffering.
48
@RetiredGuy I believe there is more that can be done. The leader must recognize any Senator who wishes to speak, and any Senator can call for an amendment to a current bill, or vote against a unanimous motion to bring the President's bill to the floor.
3
A hypocritical interview. He should not be serving as the majority leader while his wife works for the administration. This conflict of interest has hurt the career of decent people such as Garland and a million federal employees.
62
McConnell is a heartless individual who has endangered our nation (via Trump). For what? To claim political victory at sake of our society, economy, environment and standing in the world. I only pray he gets his in the end.
61
“It’s just that I don’t have the votes that can consummate the deal.”
In addition to being a cynical, hypocritical, hyperpartisan, nihilist, McConnell is a liar. He could end the Republican blackmail or shutdown tomorrow just by permitting a vote on continuing resolutions. He won’t do it, either because he’s a pathetic coward who doesn’t want to anger Trump’s groupies or he agrees with the blackmail, or both. If he really is a “historian” then he must realize that he will be villifiied in history for destroying so much of what once made the Senate the world’s greatest deliberatjve body. He and his Republican accomplices have rendered it almost completely unresponsive.
53
NYT 2012. “Mitch McConnell Praises Citizens United --
He became one of his party’s most adept money raisers.”
He blocked any laws to disclose the identity of large donors.
He told the Koch Brothers, “I don’t know where we’d be without you.”
He calls proposals to limit political spending are aimed at silencing critics of government
He says, “All Citizens United did was to level the playing field for corporate speech…. We now have, I think, the most free and open system we’ve had in modern times.”
Today, most voters and many politicians know that reversing Citizens United is crucial to restoring our weakened democracy.
Our media has to start prominently discussing this huge issue---related to most other issues it does discuss. But our op ed columnists and TV cable panels avoid it.
Big money legalized in politics shuts out the majority voice and is the main blockage to all reforms to rebalance political power and economic inequality.
Trump is a symptom of this warping of US democracy.
38
The way the senators are elected (2 senators per state whatever their population is) result in 53 republican Senators representing 40% of the population where 47 democrat Senators represent 60% of the population so McConnell is in fact re presenting a minority of the population! Which kind of Democracy is it?????
33
Mitch is essentially irrelevant as an individual. The fundamental problem here is a defect in the Constitution. No one anticipated the formation of political parties and the role that parties would play across all 3 branches; effectively negating the checks and balances inserted to prevent excessive power from being accumulated all too often. The Founders were aware of the threat that money could play in wreaking havoc on our federal system but the Supreme Court has changed the meaning of the 1st Amendment so greatly from any understanding of the Founders that Citizens United blocks any meaningful reform. Only in such a system does the likes of a McConnell rise up in power. And amendment of the relevant provisions of the Constitution is almost impossible
19
What better reason for term limits than Mitch McConnell.
73
@Psst
Generally, I'm against term limits, but here you may have a point.
1
Mitch McConnell burned down America to get his way. I’m sure he thinks he’s real cute. Probably goes home and clicks champagne glasses with Elaine and as they bask in their power and glory. No way can they wipe off their perma-grins with the knowledge they duped half the country into supporting their treasonous assault on the poor and middle class. And Trump supporters back home on the farm sit around their kitchen tables, struggling to feed their children and working to make ends meet, wondering what happened.
50
McConnell personifies all that is wrong and broken in modern politics. Typical of fascists, he sees nothing morally wrong, and feels no shame, in systematically subverting the wishes of a rapidly progressing society.
History will judge this man harshly. He leaves not a shred of integrity as a legacy.
44
The most despicable human (that’s questionable) being on the planet. And I thought I disliked Dick Cheney.
62
Democracy itself may very well be the Cost.
The Nazis were elected and thought for a long time they were successful.
China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, all think they are successful.
McConnell may be the catalyst that destroys us.
35
This is about as favorable an article about this thorn of a person I could imagine seeing in this newspaper.
Seems his fake friendly facade toward the interviewer really paid off.
17
I don't believe McConnell will be thought well of in the future. He has basically laid down and let Donald Trump, a petulant foolish creature, kick him and the entire Republican party around as though they are beach balls. Trump is most certainly a criminal and McConnell's devotion to him will be telling at some point.
28
@mrw I hope you're right. I don't know who I despise more - trump or mcconnell. I consider each of them a national disgrace.
1
Trump is an idiot and doesn't know any better. But McConnell is evil. He is smart and has deliberately done all he can to deny what most of us want. His only goal being to protect the world of old white southern males. I hate that man with a passion
67
Many things are clear from this excellent effort to explain Mitch McConnell. Probably the saddest and most damning thing is his lack of belief in the ability of the average citizen. Instead of trying to lift up the system to allow everyone to reach their highest potential and therefore raise this country up, Mc has rigged the system again and again so that only a few can be heard. There are always some that play the system using rules and precedents to get their way. In the end there is no respect for their immorality. And don't forget it is possible to remove irresponsible judges.
20
Watching the antics of Senate Republicans I have a few thoughts.
One is that whatever they are getting in return for their utter lack of concern for our nation and citizens must be sizable.
The other is that whatever the Russians obtained from their hack of the RNC must be incredibly damning.
34
I hope Senator McConnell reads this essay. It suggests that when the crisis becomes severe, McConnell will follow his conscience and influence his colleagues.
Up to now, McConnell's most successful actions involved the confirmation of two members of the Supreme Court, shifting the court to the right.
A few years ago, I would not have supported such a shift. But I have a confession to make. I don't believe Bill Cosby received a fair trial. Somehow feminists decided to throw due process under the bus to make an example of Bill Cosby.
The New Yorker and NY Times joined in a media trial. But it is a jury of twelve peers who should render judgment not a television audience between episodes of the Simpsons. The question arises: Why was Bill Cosby subject to public shaming and not Bill Clinton? Perhaps the realization of the disparity in outcomes is one reason that Hillary Clinton lost.
Many chose Donald Trump in place of none of the above. He was not terribly popular at the start. He undercut his message on immigration by using inflammatory language.
Now we are in the predicament of having an incompetent president. Tillerson, Sessions, Mattis and others were hand-picked by Trump, then fired or abandoned when they disagreed with the boss.
The government shutdown threatens to put the country into an unnecessary recession. Government workers are not receiving paychecks.
We gave Trump a chance and he screwed up. Now it is up to McConnell to help correct our mistake.
3
It's noteworthy that McConnell thinks his most significant achievement is seen as theft by more than half of the country. This man has done more to harm the institution of the Federal Government with his blocking of Obama on all fronts and using everything at his disposal to get his way...our institutions be damned.
His epitaph should read, "A Hater of the Union and a Confederate to the End."
45
I enjoyed reading this article. Very informative, and I appreciate that I could not hear your politics as the writer while reading.
Having said this there is one huge thing that I take away from this article. With McConnell there is really no such thing as "reaching hands across the aisle", a huge part of why this country is so divided.
It was chilling reading about how calmly and cooly he went about destroying any ability for President Obama to have his Supreme Court Nomination, but moved mountains to assure that his party – and that is the main point, isn't it? – got the nomination plus one, through.
I still remember that the evening that Obama won his first election, McConnell was leading the group whose main objective was to block any and everything that he proposed and assure that he was a one-term president. To my mind this is not how the Senate is supposed to work. Where was his belief and support of the "institution" then?
I lay the Government shutdown firmly in his lap. He and the Senate have the power to have negated this entire thing. They chose, or he chose not to because the President would veto anything. Already burned by his President before the holiday break, I wonder exactly why he didn't then move forward with what they had already worked on and put forward, over riding any veto and saving the American people much grief.
I cannot look at this man as a patriot when he continually puts his party and personal beliefs before his country.
1059
@TamiExcellent comment!
45
@Tami (Gotta notice, not a lot of defenders of McConnell speaking up just now. Knowing that a good number of Trump's avid supporters watch this space closely, I wonder if this means they approve anything, no matter how ignoble or unAmerican, that gives them a win and will cut this guy off the moment he is of no use.)
18
@Tami
At what cost? Comity in the Senate. The idea that Senate rules are to be abused shamelessly to achieve strategic ends -- being, primarily, to keep Mitch atop the Senate. The interests of the people be damned.
33
What Mitch wants more than anything is reelection in 2020 - everything, everybody is secondary. His currently likeablility rating in Kentucky is 17%; Trump sits at 55%. Hence, he will allow no daylight between Trump and himself - the country be damned.
His response at the end of the article is telling - revealing why he is blocking a speedy resolution to the shutdown and protecting Trump. “No,” he said. “What you need in order to make a law is the presidential signature.”
If the Senate overrode a Trump veto, iti would hurt Mitch's reelection chances in 2020. End of story.
325
@Amaratha I think it's even simpler - he's more afraid if he crosses Trump now he'll be replaced as majority leader. Sitting in a tiny office, no one returning phone calls, that's real fear.
13
@Amaratha-Connell is a hard-line opponent of campaign finance and election reforms, which makes sense when you look at the money he's received from Russia, $2.5 million that we know about. As Kentucky is the second most dependent state on federal money--his refusal to allow the House measure to fund the government even a hearing is both openly hostile to his state and cruel to the rest of the country.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns
http://www.wkyufm.org/post/kentucky-second-most-dependent-state-federal-money#stream/
13
He is a national disgrace& I would like to add , he's a racist to the core, despite his wife being a non- Caucasian
The kind of obstructions that he created in the senaye, reflect the times that we live in.
Continuous confrontation, obstructions to the legislative actions of Democrats at each step , and Impeding the Senate hearing for Garland must stand out as a summary of 4 long decades of Senate life
Each election cycle , we have had a candidate (including Trump ) who wanted to change the way Washington works, they really meant to say people like McConnell. This man is the epitome of the very swamp that Trump wanted to clean up
No matter how much I try, I can't recall his positive energy on any matter
38
@Raul Campos
Even if they are?
1
@Raul Campos
McConnell’s response to Barack Obama was patently racist, especially his tacit approval of the birther smear that conservatives pushed (including DJT. Still waiting for the “unbelievable” things that his so-called investigators dug up in Hawaii to be revealed -not.). McConnell may not care deeply about race, but he is perfectly happy to act like a racist in public. Walk like a racist, talk like a racist, party with the racists, it’s a racist.
1
“The decision not to fill the Scalia vacancy,” he said. “I think that’s the most consequential thing I’ve ever done.”
Wow. That's a legacy to be proud of. History will not remember Mitch McConnell well.
91
Let's see how Kentucky's residents are doing under Senator McConnel compared to other US states:
-Health insurance coverage ranks 47th: 6% are uninsured, 27% on Medicaid (thanks to ACA expansion)
-Poverty rate stands at 19% - 47th place
-Number of residents with high school and bachelor's degree ranking 44th and 47th
-Unemployment stands at 4.9% - 40th place
-1330 opioid overdoses in 2016 places Kentucky in 41st place
-In coal mining Kentucky ranks 3rd.
Why is your state so poor Senator McConnell?
Why aren't you fighting for Kentucky's citizens - for better education, jobs, health?
91
@Alex
Of course not. McConnell is only fighting for his OWN welfare.
2
Mr McConnel believed that without money his small voice would not have been heard and he would stand no chance of being elected. Perhaps he needed a stronger voice and less money.
28
Based on the description of its flight habit, the bird referenced in the first paragraph sounds more like a buzzard than a red-tailed hawk. More appropriate to Mitch McConnell and to the state of our national politics as a whole.
27
Does anyone have a good word to say about Mitch McConnell? Please share. I'd like to hear the other side.
18
I rewatched an NPR interview with his wife. She said he is a " low maintenance husband" who does his own laundry and cooks good dinners.
Not a recommendation for his Senate role...
15
Mitch's wife, like Donald's is an immigrant and yet they are anti immigration. I guess Melania is acceptable because she was a model and Chao because she is the heir to a billion dollar shipping fortune. It would be interesting to see a list of how many powerful men are married to immigrant women, especially Hispanics, but don't want others to come.
37
Except perhaps for Trump himself, Senator Mitch McConnell had done more to permanently undermine our values and good governance than any other politician in recent times.
If Trump is removed from office and his myriad corrosive precedents receive a “do not do this” asterisk, then McConnell will top the list.
29
As far as I can tell, the only thing Mr. McConnell has wanted is to hide in hopes of avoiding blame. Bold cowardice is the mark of true leadership.
20
Mitch McConnell is the antithesis of the Founding Fathers, a person so one-sided, so corrupted by power and special interests -and ignorant of the progress America has made in the last fifty years on equality, wages, education, healthcare, the environment- that he sets the country back in so many important and instrumental ways, in some ways irreversibly.
The people of Kentucky should be ashamed. I am ashamed for them, that this abominable politician can inflict such pain on this country. A terrible reflection on a great state. He stands against everything I believe in. He is my enemy. I wish him no ill will other than defeat, but that’s up to the voters of Kentucky
All I know is if Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, or Thomas Jefferson were alive today and members of Congress, there would be fistfights!
30
We need to get rid of McConnell and like-minded political dinosaurs before they drag us back into the 19th century. Our democracy, economy, and lives are at stake. They see reality through a harsh, distorted lens. Where there is a humanitarian refuge crisis they see an invasion of criminals. Have they not ever heard of the parable of the good Samaritan? Not one of these men would be recognized as a Christian by Jesus where he here in the flesh today.
28
The politician most responsible for the collapse of Americans’ belief that they live in a true democracy. That will be history’s verdict on this so-purported student of history.
32
Mitch McConnell should be tried for treason and jailed for life. What he pulled with Garland, Obama's pick, is unforgivable. He was clearly qualified and with a year left in his term Pres Obama had every right to get a hearing on his nominee. These ultra righties, they only follow the constitution when it fits their needs.
53
Merrick Garland was not nominated by a lame duck president as McConnell claimed. That would be a president who nominated someone after an election in which his or her successor had been elected.
The idea that it's okay not to tell the truth or to say anything you please because it will get from one point to another is not okay.
What is also not good is when close observers and writers do not call these people immediately on their . . . well, lies, coverups, and excuses.
32
McConnell actually thinks his political calculations will deify him. His partisan strategy will be viewed as the moment America began to burn.
He is despicable.
30
I always think he is the real culprit behind what is happening now. He is the guy who desired single term to President Obama and completely obstructed President Obama at crucial times. Sometimes I think Mr. trump is his puppet.
27
Party and McConnell over country for the majority leader. He is evil and history will view him that way, as well.
29
That McConnell has done more damage to American society, and the aamerican middle class, than any other Senate leader, is indisputable. His legacy will be that he served the plutocrats extremely well, and the average American horribly. He is a brilliant tactician and a miserable human being. That he is proud of such an abominable track record indicates his lack of a heart.
34
To me, he represents the worst of his class. His love of money and power has gotten him what? The majority of the country try thinks he is vile and pathetic. Kentucky can do much better.
21
Congrats, Mitch. It's somebody's fault, and we all know it can't be Trump. Paul R. is gone. The Fickle Finger of Fate is pointing Right at you. You are the epicenter. As Cromwell put it, "We beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
If so, what a set of mistakes.
19
Mitch's wife and bro-in-law ought to be deeply grateful to him... because of his unconditional support for The Fraud, they're assured of continued employment in trumps House Of Frauds...
What a despicable, disgusting man thet Mitch McConnell...
Follow the money and I'll bet you'll find Mitch in deep with corruption...
24
....."But at What Cost?
His mortal soul.......
17
Nice article but the title is misleading. I am pretty sure from his point of view McConnell would be proud of his legacy. He has changed the course of the federal justice system significantly in favor of the Conservatives. He got Republican in the White House in 2016, and he had absolute control over what passes as law. Large control over two out of three branches of government, not bad at all. His only regret might be that he couldn’t keep Obama to one term. But hey, he can always blame Romney for that.
86
@VS
I would add that what you are describing is a despot, not a patriot.
16
@VS
I think that he would be a very effective President.
@VS That personal pride over what he sees as his legacy is the problem. Is it a good thing that he changed our justice system? Right now the participants/judges in that system do not even remotely reflect the makeup and desires of the American population. I think it is a recipe for ongoing civic unrest. He may think Conservatism is the answer but he and many of his colleagues are completely clueless and disinterested in the life that the average Americans leads and why the average American makes the decisions that he/she makes. Trump got Trump into the White House with the help of those who wish to divide the United States and support a more authoritarian form of government. McConnell has a similar goal - "I win, you lose" because I alone know what is right. He may be an excellent politician but he is very undemocratic in his approach. He believes the minority should establish the standards for the majority.
8
This article appears to be proof that McConnell is, as some of his supporters would put it if on the other side, an agent of the Devil.
41
McConnell and Republicans are firing all their ammunition before the ship sinks. By his own admission his party has lost the educated woman's vote and by proxy the millennial generation and people of color. Like Trump his zero sum view of governance translates into representing only half of the nation, paralyzing progress on the ill's of the nation's poor and lower middle class and cynically throttling those who support him most.
28
All true, and just think... his/and the republicans myopic and cruel ideology will be ruling over us for the next 35 yrs thanks to his complete capture of the judiciary, lower, appellate AND SCOTUS....
for all the “protest” voters out there... THIS is ENTIRELY on you, I hope it’s worth it..
16
@Marie Gamalski
We can only hope the new young and vibrant women of the house of representatives, the students fighting for gun control and detrimental environmental changes we all see spurs minds to act on their future.
1
I believe Mitch McConnell will go down in history as the architect of the Fascist States of America. Period.
I also believe that, in his own way, Mr McConnell is as amoral as Donald Trump, but he is not a psychopath with the inherent disorganisation of such people. He is instead, organised, zealous, completely dedicated and ruthless in his pursuit of power for his ideology. Which is that Americans will openly embrace the one party state for which he has striven for so long.
I believe that while Mr McConnell may have confidence that his way will be the best thing for America, I suggest that while the ordinary people may not agree with him, those who matter to him, will. There may well be states to him in fact.
The return of a democratic state will take as long for America as it did for all the other failed democracies in Europe, because it will return eventually. The pain will be severe in the meantime.
The great experiment is over as America reveals itself to be no better, and no worse, just younger, than everyone else.
62
I suspect McConnell has lost nothing. I fear America has lost everything.
43
He's even worse than I thought; a petty, obsessed manipulative man who has done more to deepen the divides in the country and saw big money as a way to get to office but also to implement his agenda. Does that include rubles?
41
Well, it for sure includes Yen, so yeah... I’m sure Rubles are on the table too..
6
Say what you want to about McConnell, but any senate majority (or minority, for that matter) leader, who only chooses to do the presidents bidding and does not do the job of leading the senate to be a separate and equal part of a democratic government is a failure; cold, hard and simple.
Also by not fulfilling his responsibility to do the job of leading the senate by stymieing a president from a different party, (by not holding even a hearing for a well respected supreme court nominee) is totally and completely irresponsible. He is a black mark on, and a shame to both the senate and to the United States of America.
64
@Life-long Yankee
McConnell should have been impeached for dereliction of duty after he blocked the Merrick Garland nomination (i.e., he refused to provide to advise and consent).
And just so we all remember, McConnell does the president’s bidding only when it’s his party’s president.
34
Almost superluous to add to earlier comments. Our Mitch is a miserable excuse for a human being and a disgrace to theoffice. The citizens of Kentucky may desreve him but the rest of us do not.
34
Too bad McConnell doesn't love his country as much as he does winning. He would have made a great patriot.
23
Trump is just the current (but dangerous) clown act jumping around to distract us from Mitch McConnell, who has singlehandedly brought this country and its people to the brink of destruction. Senate Republicans deserve to be sent home forever in shame for continuing to vote in McConnell as leader. From Citizen's United to Merrick Garland to the deliberate blocking of Obama's programs that could actually make American lives better, McConnell has played out his detestable agenda of power using his own Citizen's United to court money from Russia, the NRA, the Kochs Mercers and more.
McConnell is a loathsome creature whose acts will likely crush the GOP.
40
Mitch says the Republican voters chose Trump as their nominee, huh? I want to see those ballots, or poll results, or anything that says registered (or unregistered) Republican voters chose to put a criminal in charge of America. The state I live in does actually hold pre-election voting to thin out the herd trying to get to the final day of voting. Trump was not on any such ballot. No pollsters advertised they wanted our opinions. The RNC simply decided it could control Trump and, tongue in cheek (what cheek?), foisted him on America. He promptly proved he was out of control and uncontrollable. Before the election. Those voting for him got what they deserve. Too bad the rest of us got him too. Mitch lives and acts in some kind of dream world, perhaps the Twilight Zone. I want out of his world.
17
@Angelsea
In fact, Trump got less than 50% in most of the primaries, particularly when there was a crowded field, yet he got the lion's share of delegates from those contests.
Primaries for both parties should allow two or three equal votes when there is a crowded field. Otherwise, a disreputable conman with outside help can rig the election and catapult himself to a position that he absolutely should not be in.
7
McConnell will go down in history as the Senate leader that steered the Senate and the Judiciary branch from democratic governance into oligarchy, as he put the interests of his billionaire patrons ahead of any sense of duty toward the rest of the country. He is the clear embodiment of Citizens United.
41
Everything he wanted? Like going down in history as a spineless quisling who sold his soul for a tax break that added $1 trillion to the national debt?
32
Senator McConnell has been an amoral and cynical Republican leader. The selfless ideals contained in our country's founding documents, our legislators' oaths of office, and the democratic spirit that has inspired the world mean very little to McConnell.
History will not treat him kindly. When they write about the corruption and loss of integrity that marks our political era, McConnell will get his own chapter. His legacy is stained by fighting against McCain-Feingold, Merritt Garland, and his subservience to Trump -- to say nothing of championing policies and massive tax give-a-ways informed by the greed of the already wealthy.
Gayle Sayers' biography is called "I Am Third" meaning: God is first, others are second, and I am third.
McConnell's life has been informed by the inverse. His biography could be called "Me First": Mitch first, Republicans second, and the country third.
23
Country last! Third is Big Oil, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and on and on.
6
His complete capture of the judiciary guarantees we will be ruled by this bigoted, corporate, “Party” for a minimum of 35 yrs...
I don’t blame McConnell... he’s been a transparent right wing demigod out in the open, caring ONLY about $$ and re-election,
I ABSOLUTELY blame the ‘16 “protest voters” and the petulant “Bernie bros” that were determined to “teach us a lesson”.... I hope they’re happy...it’s ONLY 35 yrs right??
3
@Marie Gamalski
Actually, "demigod" is precisely the opposite of what he is.
Based on the photo he looks like a friendly dictator but can't control the US Senate. He will be remembered by many Americans. What does it take to be a Senate majority leader? I met Bob Dole and Mike Mansfield many times. Both were great senators. Mansfield was also a great diplomat.
7
It’s hard to know which act of treason committed by this man should be enshrined for future generations — there are so many to chose from. But I return to perhaps his most unforgivable act: his refusal to join Democrats in informing the American people of Russia’s attack on our democracy out of fear it would hurt him politically.
As a devout Christian and a lifelong Kentucky Republican voter (until this last presidential election), I pray for his children and grandchildren and hope they will learn from this man’s sins and dedicate their lives to restoring their family name and bringing honor back to our once great state.
Shame.
29
He will leave in 2 years a very very rich man. Isn’t that the point for guys like him?
23
And he’s solidified his “win” by capturing the courts for 35 yrs...the wife has helped herself to millions as well, and how convenient, they passed a massive tax gift for themselves...
it pays to be amoral, that’s FOR SURE, just ask Paul Ryan, the guy who’s ONLY job was making our lives miserable, who wants us to “take responsibility, and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”... SS financed HIS education, now it’s a dirty entitlement the country can’t afford...
since the “southern strategy” this party has been nakedly evil, that they’re still around shows OUR amorality as a country..
9
I would like to make a citizens arrest non Mitch McConnell for destroying our republic for the benefit of foreign governments
17
Vile man. He doesn't deserve being in the public sector. His value system is transactional, and based on serving himself and his moneyed interests and backers. I long for the day that he and others of his ilk are gone from our political sphere. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about this man, he does not respect the rules of governance, nor the American people. His way of legislating is grinding everything to a halt so he can take us back a few decades, and in the interim rob the little guy not just of their money, but their rights as well. Horrible man.
24
Does he have actual mirrors in his Homes ???
12
So is Mitch McConnell, now Trump's fixer and enabler, like, the new Michael Cohen?
10
But at what cost? It cost him his legacy. History will remember him for the untold harm he wrought upon our country while showing us and the world the truth of Mitch. He is not a leader, but a racist, bigot, misogynist, fiscally irresponsible power-before-country kind of guy, intent on harming all of us and the environment with his actions and inactions.
16
McDonnell for president.
I find this man so disgustingly manipulative, I can't even read the whole article. I read somewhere that Mitch McConnell is the one who held a pillow over the face of our democracy, suffocating it slowly but surely. Exactly so. The voters of KY have done us and themselves a grave disservice sending this man back to Washington year after year. I long to see him leave the Senate.
28
It’s the republican way, how else to explain King, Gomert, Grassley, Hatch etc.... the republican constituency has always been.... do something horrible to THEM, so I can watch... just don’t do it to ME...
they return these ppl year after year, because they LIKE the amorality they see...they’re racist, homophobic, xenophobic misogynists, the only light is they’re dying off..
hopefully they didn’t stain their offspring completely w/their hatred...
5
Mitch McConnell
Why?
4
Mitch McConnell has personally delivered control of the U.S. Senate to Vladimir Putin. Lindsey Graham gets awarded as assist.
18
Mitch McConnell is the most despicable man alive who has used his leadership to line his pockets at the expense of the American people. He is a rich man, but his state is one of the poorest in the nation. He has done nothing for the people of Kentucky.
23
Advice and consent to treaties and appontments to the executive and judicial branches are such fundamental roles of government that the malapportionment of the Senate is an even worse travesty than the Electoral Cpollege fake voting scam.
What a monster that conceited fool McConnell really is.
13
It's appropriately emblematic of McConnell's Senate that he should be picture in the Strom Thurmond Room. Only in so hidebound an institution could a racist as unreconstructed as Thurmond be venerated.
9
“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell.”
— the historian Christopher Browning
20
If you are going to serve in the highest levels of public office in this country, we should see your taxes . . . before and after you serve.
McConnell will get paid for killing his sense of shame.
This isn't an old white guy thing-although it's usually old white guys-this is all about money.
7
The man who destroyed our fragile democracy in service to his political party, carried by the force of the fossil fuel industry, the NRA and Christian fanatics, with the unmistakable whiff of racism. A petty, vindictive, little man.
14
If ever a man should be in jail for treason, McConnell is that man. A despicable, vile, and pernicious individual who has done more to damage this country than even Trump.
15
He willingly posed for this picture?
3
If only Kentucky would pay its own way, it would really help the image.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/
Responsible Americans are really sick of paying for this gravy train.
10
Nice bi-op for a man who has ZERO meaningful legislative writings. His only goal is to kill the New Deal by bullying the system to retain white male jurists who vote like Scalia and Thomas.
He wants America back - circa 1955. He’s the Retsina of white wine.
I don’t respect this man and I totally disrespect the voters of Kentucky for repeatedly sending this power hungry turkey amongst us.
13
“But generally, when I’ve been involved in obstruction, there was a point to it.”
Of course there was a point to Mitch McConnell’s obstruction. And most often the point was to gain political advantage, or to deny Barack Obama anything that might be to *his* political advantage. In McConnell’s case, the pluses and minuses of policy were beside the point. That’s why, as Charles Homans writes in this piece, “McConnell is the first majority leader whose career has been built on the assumption that the Senate that could produce the great legislative works of his predecessors is a thing of the past — a fact that itself owes a great deal to McConnell.”
After 34 years in the Senate, it’s a pretty pathetic legacy.
25
Yet another article about a politician who has sold his soul for power, to be right, to push his right wing agenda, especially in regards to the recent debacle of Brent Kavanaugh being appointed to the Supreme Court despite the allegations against him.
I don't like McConnell's view of what he thinks America should be and I am hoping that someone will take him on we he is up for re-election yet again. Or, he will resign after his many years in "service" to himself and his party.
10
@Mallory That should read false and irrelevant allegations....
@Mallory: McConnell’s power derives from the money showered on him to distribute as he sees fit to other politicians.
4
@Dan: It is a fact that teenage males commonly drink and do hurtful things to girls trying to prove their masculinity to each other. If K. had come clean about it, he would have proven himself a worthier judge of others, and allieviated the emotinal wounds he inflicted on the young lady.
1
I don't care about McConnell's legacy, because he certainly doesn't. Nothing he has done suggests he has any concern about what people think of him in hindsight. I just want him gone from government. Among the many people I know who are angry at the current state of affairs and those responsible for it, their greatest anger is reserved for McConnell. He is the embodiment of disdain for the well being of his country and the common good.
40
My take - McConnell is a dark and deep blot on our American Republic. Our current chaos traces back to some 12 plus years ago when McConnell set the agenda and pathway for our legislative process. I too have read the book "The Prince" written in 1513 my Niccolo Machiavelli in the year 1513. Pence has his bible, McConnell relies on "The Prince". The Kentucky wonder is the epitome of Party First, Country Second - of even Third. As expected, stacking the Federal Judiciary is his proudest achievement. This made possible by relentless obstructionism and blocking of the consideration of appointments. Find it laughable that the record number of Federal Appointments made to the Federal Judiciary by Trumputin is cited as a huge accomplishment. Mitch had them stacked up and had moved the candidate recommendation process from the American Bar Association to - ta da - the right wing Federalist Society. Mitch Machiavelli McConnell (and Cadet Bone Spurs) will not be treated kindly by historians. Each will have just one page - showing: Name, Date of Birth, Date of Death, - then the brief notation "This page left blank intentionally"!
28
Soon he’ll be relagated to the dustbin of history as someone who accomplished nothing that benifitted the country or its citizens.
McConnell has been on the wrong side of truth and justice on virtually everything.
13
I hope McConnell enjoys the fact that he helped ruin the GOP and the party will never be the same again.
The party of Lincoln is gone and the party of Trump is now in play and they have to change the name because there's nothing grand about it.
This is the one thing the founding fathers did't think about, someone becoming president who doesn't care about the country or the constitution.
We can;t say God Bless America anymore, now it's God Help America.
21
I believe history will judge Mitch McConnell rather harshly.
Assuming that American democracy eventually gets back to a more balanced, less acrimonious state, the hyper-partisanship and rule-breaking shenanigans of guys like McConnell, Gingrich and Ryan will be seen in much the same way as we look back at the legislators who got into fistfights on the floors of Congress in the decades leading up to the Civil War: sure, they were team players, but nobody would want to travel back in time to have a beer with these guys.
McConnell, in particular, is in for harsh scrutiny. While doubtless he still giggles privately about his oh-so-clever distortions of parliamentary procedure, the brazen theft of a Supreme Court seat was beyond the pale, and puts him outside the boundaries of civilized behavior. Coupled with his do-nothing attitude under both Democratic and Republican presidencies, and McConnell seems a much smaller, less visionary figure than advertised.
Senator McConnell is plainly a small-minded and venal partisan, and he fearfully shrank from the greatness and purposeful patriotism seen elsewhere in American civic life. This is his only real legacy: of a small man, driven entirely by ego and self-satisfaction. No hint of greatness here.
23
Beware, Senator McConnell. The tyranny of the Majority will have unhealthy consequences for our democracy.
4
I nearly laughed out loud when I read ". “Senator McConnell, very careful and thoughtful about what he says, deeply studied in the history of the country and how the federal government works."
It is the Constitutional duty of the Senate to advise and consent. "Hold open" is a scurrilous description of what McConnell decided to do even before Justice Scalia was buried. Hold up is more accurate.
But then, it is the president's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.
Conservatives believe in sound government: McConnell amd Trump trash both.
13
It’s too bad we have such an intelligent, knowledgeable man working so hard to be on what I predict will be the wrong side of history.
5
Mitch McConnell is one of the MOST abhorrent people in the country.
He is cynical, manipulative and a consummate liar.
He kept Republican Senators from even meeting with Merrick Garland because the election was too close, he said. The election was almost one year away.
Then he fast tracked Kavanaugh’s nomination through the Senate with upcoming election months alway.
Since the beginning of the year, he has had Bills passed by the House that would re-open the Government and fund most Departments, with a CR for Homeland Security to keep negotiating on the border. He refused to bring them because they might be vetoed by the President
Now he’s going to fast-track Trump’s Plan in the Senate - it has little chance at passing the House but he’s going to do it anyway.
After President Obama’s 2008 victory (electoral college AND popular vote) McConnell’s number one goal, as stated by him, was to make this newly elected President a one-termer. This at a time when we were in TWO wars AND and economic disaster - both under a Republican Administration.
Trump wins an electoral victory ONLY and suddenly “Elections have consequences”.
Senator McConnell should read the Constitution, which he took an oath to uphold. The Senate and House are CO-EQUAL branches of government. He doesn’t work for Donald Trump although his wife does - Conflict of interest there?
.
18
Mitch McConnell has a track record of avoiding his constitutional responsibilities from refusing the required "advice and consent" for Obama Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland to ignoring Donald Trump's clear violation of the emoluments clause to his current refusal to pass a veto-proof "clean" budget to reopen the federal government. Instead, he's consistently acted to enable an autocratic president while shirking his oath to act as a "check and balance" on executive excess. And Donald Trump's demand for a $5.7 billion for a wall while holding government employees hostage without pay is clearly an example of autocratic excess. Sen. McConnell can play the usual political gamesmanship of deflecting, dodging, and denying responsibility, but his anti-constitutional behavior is clear. At every turn he's pushed the Constitution aside in favor of an autocrat.
10
It seems McConnell does things he wants to do not what the people want him to do.
4
It seems that McConnell is a lot like Trump. They both really wanted to have the office they hold - for the sake of holding it - but they don't have the political competence to do the jobs required.
Trump is a product of the loonies who watch Fox News and merely jump onto whatever crazy impulse evokes the most superficial excitement.
McConnell is content to merely sit back and bask in the knowledge that he is Majority Leader - without doing any constructive meeting, strategizing and problem solving. He just can't get it done when the job is tough.
5
I think it time he retires, he’s not getting any wiser. Can’t wait to see him turn on trump as soon as that become politically expedient.
4
[Literary Nerd Mode]
The bird was a falcon, not a hawk, and it was on its own, not being guided by a falconer. And if it was truly a literary reference, the gyre would've deteriorated by the time you observed it in midafternoon because the center would not have held and things would've fallen apart.
[/LNM]
2
The damage this one man has done to this country may take decades to fully comprehend.
If the Senate had preformed its constitutionally mandated duties as intended, much of the dismantling of our democratic norms by this administration could have been mitigated. Instead, Mitch McConnell, for reasons unknown, has acted in ways to facilitate the humiliation and disempowering of our country internationally, while turning Government agencies into kleptocracies and allowing a totalitarian dictator wannabe to run roughshod over legal restraints and human rights.
There are no words (that can be posted here) that adequately express the sustain and disgust Americans of conscience have for this man.
12
It's hard to imagine that Mitch McConnell has gotten "everything he wanted." If he has the capability of being totally honest, if only for a moment, his wish list would probably include a chin and a conscience. But he has consistently chosen party over country, Trump over Lincoln, and a reputation for utter shamelessness.
10
I remember in days past when the conservatives would continually complain that Harry Reid was an obstructionist and was Obama's lackey.
Well, fast forward to the toxic political environment of today with an obstructionist Trump lackey as the majority leader and not a peep from the conservatives.
However, two wrongs don't make it right that in both cases the public has been ill-served by those who favor radical conservative or radial liberal politics and who we expect to conduct the public's business, not Trump's or Obama's or any future president regardless of who she may be.
As we enter day 30 of not paying our federal employees due to a trumper tantrum, place blame where blame is due-on McConnell and his zeal to climb aboard the SS Trumptanic.
8
McConnell brings to mind a quote from Brideshead Revisited: "He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending to be whole." McConnell epitomizes modern American politics, especially Republicans. He values power for its own sake, rather than seeking power to accomplish a set of policy goals. He believes in nothing but power, and uses that power to accrue yet more power. The costs of his endless pursuit of power imposed on unpaid government workers, migrant families, American families mired in economic, food, and health insecurity, etc apparently do not factor into his political calculations. He is master of Senate rules and gamesmanship toward no broader ends, and with no redeeming purpose. Politicians like him are much greater threats to our long-term democracy than a transient, largely ineffective demagogue like Trump. We can survive Trump, but can we survive a government of McConnells?
17
Senator McConnell always comes across as being self-assured that he is doing the right thing - for himself.
6
The damage this one man has done to this country may take decades to fully comprehend.
If the Senate had preformed its constitutionally mandated duties as intended, much of the dismantling of our democratic norms by this administration could have been mitigated. Instead, Mitch McConnell, for reasons unknown, has acted in ways to facilitate the humiliation and disempowering of our country internationally, while turning Government agencies into kleptocracies and allowing a totalitarian dictator wannabe to run roughshod over legal restraints and human rights.
There are no words (that can be posted here) that adequately express the sustain and disgust Americans of conscience have for this man.
3
Make no mistake about it; this is McConnell's shutdown. He is putting party over country and has gone too far. He's taken 800,000 innocent bystanders hostage; he might as well be holding a gun to their heads. He won't put a bill in front of Trump that Trump won't sign thereby allowing a veto override and he stood in the Senate and opposed a fellow legislator trying to force a vote. Basically, one person runs the government and it's not Trump.
McConnell (I prefer to call him Turtleman) is trying to hold the GOP, a dying institution, together by whatever means necessary and he's abusing his power. Here's my idea of a compromise - seating two Supreme Court justices (when one should have been an Obama appointee) and 83 lower-court (read: conservative) judges for releasing the hostages.
McConnell is wealthy and his wife is an heiress; maybe they'll lend people money so they can stay in their homes. Will banks, mortgage companies, and utility companies wait for all their money? I'll venture a guess no.
As an aside, if you are even late on a mortgage payment your house goes into pre-foreclosure and we know how upstanding these companies are. Since this administration has emboldened financial companies to take advantage of consumers I doubt they'll be empathetic in the least.
7
Where is Mitch McConnell? Maybe he knowing is following Paul Ryan's path into retirement, he sure behave the same way. Until then he will be an absentee leader of his GOP caucus and just like Ryan loses their majority in the upcoming election with their fake outrage of their fake political crises.
Despite Trump’s obvious, buffoonery and criminality, the party of plutocrats the GOP supports him because he enriched their present with tax cuts and future with conservative judges to protect their ability to buy elections. Trump taking his marching orders from his nefarious puppeteers of Murdoch and Putin which is causing an implosion of the party of plutocrats causing a creative destruction. They will either go back to being the party of Lincoln and Roosevelt and/or a minority party for decades to come has it happened in California.
4
McConnell has plenty of power, -- he could easily re-open the government by allowing the Senate to vote. But he has to be willing to override a presidential veto. He is choosing to enable a vindictive and irrational president, one whom he helped to put in power. McConnell is as much to blame as Trump. He needs to quit whining and do his job.
6
I'd say the cost was that he lost his soul. However, you can't really lose your soul if you never had one in the first place, can you?
If there is a single man most responsible for digging the grave of our 243 year old democracy, it's Mitch McConnell. He and Trump are the poster boys of self-serving pomposity.
You simply can't any lower than these guys.
11
History will not judge Leader McConnell kindly. Neither he nor Donald Trump seem to appreciate the concept of serving the nation and all its citizens well. It's strictly a battle for power at any cost, regardless of whether that battle tears down the country we love and its democratic institutions. While McConnell is clearly proud of his ability to impose his will, he should not be proud of his spineless support for a charlatan who is the worst person to ever lay claim to the Oval Office.
7
While reading this article about McConnell, the words of Hannah Arendt kept repeating in my head: "The Banality of Evil". How one small, cynical man can do so much harm to a once-great institution. And he actually believes he will be remembered as a great senator!
11
The only thing Mitch McConnell should be remembered for is “squelching” the voice of the American people by “stealing” a Supreme Court justice nomination from an elected administration.
To be followed by “selling out” the United States as whole, when accepting candidate Trump as the republican presidential nomination; because the republican party failed to have anything to stand on going into 2016 elections other than the rantings of Steve Bannon through Trump’s mouth, thus gaining a broader base republicans would not have had otherwise.
Mitch McConnell should be remembered for his short sited narrow selfish vision of American politics at large. Thanks Mitch!
5
The writer would have us believe that "McConnell ha[s] emerged as one of the few unambiguous winners of the Trump presidency to date."
In truth, McConnell has "emerged" as what he is: a Republican-in-name-only who is bought and paid for by multiple special interests. He is a party of one. The fact that he is a republican is incidental to his purposes. He sold out to the big money boys years ago and he answers only to them.
Let's take off our rose colored glasses and stop believing that our nation is going to survive. It will not. The forces at work to destroy our nation and our way of life took over our government many years ago following the second world war. If you doubt it, you simply have to follow McConnell's political career and power grab.
We are witnessing the last days of an failed experiment in democracy. The big moneyed interests headed by McConnell cannot survive in a democracy. McConnell, as CEO of "Big$$$, Inc" is steering a ship full of money, influence, & political/social power into an open ocean that will never reach port. He is happy where he is and the big money boys are very happy to leave him there to continue parting the waters for them and only them. They get what they want and he is safe and secure in his wealth and power. McConnell hung a “do no disturb” sign on his door following the shut down.
Facts support that Trump is but a blip on McConnell's radar screen. He knows the big money boys are going to be "just fine."
4
McConnell is pure partisan power politics. Win at ANY cost. Win by ANY means. Cheat if you can get away with it. Distort the will of the people. Simply refuse to honor the will of the people. Disregard all citizens who are not on your side. But why? For money. Maybe a little. No. It's for power. That is the reward itself for Mitch.
I'm certain that he sees himself as a warrior for all the "right" causes. But most of this country does not like what they see.
As it turns out, history and McConnell's place in it will be judged tomorrow by today's children. America will be much less the land of opportunity and much more the land of servitude; where capital (and those who have it) grows of its own gravity and most everyone else just scrapes by. They will not honor your legacy Mr. McConnell. Quite the opposite actually. No one will remember you fondly.
9
Hi soul. Small price really considering the man.
3
At what cost? Good question. I was going to say his soul but he doesn't have one.
4
He got what he wanted, he pleased his right-wing constituents. The same constituents who pride themselves of being nice and homely but, deep inside, harbor this hate and fear of the unknown. They are against immigration but they haven’t met an immigrant to feel empathetic towards their suffering. They fear abortion because of their religious beliefs leading them to live miserable lives by not having women control their own bodies. They fear the LGBT community but they don’t have the sympathy for those who cant change who they are. The list can go and on.
History might judge him very badly, but he will be forgotten soon, not to be spoke of again but for a few seconds in some news panel debate. The people who suffer the consequences of his policies will be distracted by their phones or blinded by their ignorance.
1
Ever since McConnell stole the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination, I cannot read, hear or listen to anything he has to say or spout about governance, the Rule of Law or the Constitution. He has betrayed his Oath of Office for personal and political aggrandizement, and the sooner he exits stage right, the far better off this nation will be.
12
Mitch McConnell's wife, brother, and brother-in-law are all in the Trump administration.
Why should Mitch McConnell go against Trump?
McConnell is thanking God for Nepotism.
10
Mr. McConnell is the poster child for why Americans have no trust in Congress.
10
So, there it is. Addison Mitchell McConnell Junior's EXCUSE for not bringing the House Bill to simply re-open government to a floor vote.
“It’s just that I don’t have the votes that can consummate the deal.”
FOR ALL THE COUNTRY TO SEE: The Senate has abdicated to Ceasar! To give Ceasar HIS games and HIS walls.
Sunday: “No, Amnesty is not a part of my offer. Amnesty will be used only on a much bigger deal, whether on immigration or something else.”
Tuesday: “With a powerful Wall or Steel Barrier, Crime Rates (and Drugs) will go substantially down all over the U.S. The Dems know this but want to play political games. Must finally be done correctly. No Cave!”
Rome burns to his tweets, this modern-day fiddle.
3
Ok, I misspelled Caesar.
It's T-R-U-M-P.
2
trump’s cheap shot diversionary tactic of blaming the DEMs for being obstructionist on immigration is one big fat lie. He conveniently forgets that right out of the gate in Obama’s 1st term McConnell, declaring it was the GOP's sole aim to make him a one term president, launched a concerted full scale obstructionist (ie filibuster) effort to stymie Obama’s every move. But Obama succeeded in putting together a comprehensive immigration bill and the senate passed it despite GOP obstructuion efforts. But Ryan refused to table the bill in congress. Then in Obama’s 2nd term McConnell having become senate leader declared the GOP wouldn't co- operate with Obama on anything and killed the immigration bill.
The GOP, and McConnell particularly, owns this immigration debacle, no question.
6
Not much cost at all. Most people know that he is a relic who earned that reputation decades ago. I could say more about his ineptitude, but I don't want to beat a dead horse.
1
Mitch McConnell stands for everything that is wrong with our country. He did all he could do to make President Obama a one term president without giving him a chance, he opposed Obama on every thing, refused to give a hearing to his Supreme Court nominee, almost a year before the end of his second term, so he can push through Kavanaugh, who is unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. In return, McConnell, went along with everything Trump wanted, even those who has and will continue to harm America and Americans. McConnell is a dangerous man, and he has found a person like trump to satisfy his unpatriotic agenda through.
7
Mr. McConnell, concerned as you are with your place in history, do you not see that just about everyone associated with Trump has been diminished if not completely ruined by the experience? Do you really believe that, as one of Trump's toadies and key enablers, you will escape that fate? You signed a pact with the devil. That pact always includes one non-negotiable clause. The bill will come due. Item 1: one soul.
4
“President” McConnell is the racist mysogenist that has allowed Trump, Kavanaugh, the government shut down, basically everything to happen - at a minimum under his watch, at a maximum by his own sheer force. Why does he still stand, unaffected, and in power? Why can’t anyone or any movement take him down?
1
I'd laugh if things weren't so darned serious, but Mitch has an enemy of the Republican Party and the conservative movement leading the GOP into rack and ruin. He's taken aim at every one of their accomplishments and he has torn down their legacies. I cannot imagine a future Republican candidate claim the GOP is still the party of Lincoln or Reagan without having to run for cover. Let's face it Mitch you have an enemy combatant in your midst and hugging him only ruins you and your future. Trump has only made the Democrats stronger and more resolved . . . but none of us will thank Trump. He gets a double bird - two middle fingers raised on high.
2
This is an exhaustive outline about Mitch Mc Connell, but it sounds more like a whitewash. I have just read the Robert Caro article in the New Yorker, about his research into Lyndon Johnson and how Caro ultimately discovered how Johnson acquired power thru the financial backing he received from wealthy Texans. That's the thing that is missing from this piece on Mc Connell.... and needs to be investigated. How, why, and when did he turn from so hopefully talking about acting in unison, to the obstructive, and destructive person he is today?
4
Certainly the Senator is a stubborn guy. But history will judge him harshly. He has been Trump’s chief enabler. He weakened the character and reputation of SCOTUS by his manipulating the process to get Kavanaugh appointed. He did everything he could to frustrate Obama’s agenda especially healthcare.He vowed to limit Obama to one term. Fortunately he misfired on that one. Overall a shameful record.
6
Recall Mitch. Abolish the Senate.
1
The cost was the disrespect of more than half the country and their undying enmity. Count me among them. We won't let history forget.
6
History will judge this administration as one of the worst and McDonnell was a major contributor as well as Paul Ryan
5
Mitch McConnell has turned out to be an obstructionist coward blindly beholding to his boss Trump.
First he blocked the Merritt Garland nomination and now he is blocking the passage of bills to reopen the government.
He is part of Congress’s Old Republican White Men’s’ Society already being challenged by the Young Democratic Women’s Sorority.
The Democratic women and history will not treat him kindly.
3
Christopher Browning is correct, Mitch McConnell will be remembered as “the gravedigger of American democracy."
And, Harry Reid had it correct. "Mitch McConnell has ruined the Senate.” McConnell has subverted our Constitutional Right to a representative government by turning the Senate into his own private fiefdom. Now, with his refusal to allow a vote on legislation that the president won’t sign, McConnell has driven a stake through the heart of the Senate as an independent and viable institution of checks and balance.
A couple of years ago, he effectively killed the Supreme Court by refusing to put Merrit Garland to a vote. He has been engineering a partisan Federal Court system by slow-walking all Obama appointees and speed-waling Federalist Society candidates. No longer do we have an unbiased court system in this country; ie, our cherished American Rule of Law where all are equal under the law is severely weakened.
Now, in the rush toward authoritarianism, the House is the only institution left with a faint pulse.
Mitch McConnell will go down in history as the most destructive senator. McConnell may console himself that over time the system will self-correct, but this does not mitigate what he has done.
10
Equal justice under law? Not with justices like Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas.
6
It is not farcical blowhards like Trump that are the real dangers to democracy; the real dangers are meek men like McConnell who follow and empower them, subjugating the good of their country and their constitutional responsibilities for personal power. McConnell is a “sheep in sheep’s clothing” if there ever was one.
5
McConnell has been, for the last eight or nine years, one of the most despicable politicians. Anti Obama, anti-amything democratic. Trumps stooge.
The damage he has caused to the end of any sort of reasonable actions by Congress is incalculable.
If ever there was an example of why one-term limits should be the law for all politicians, he is it.
4
He will go down as one of the biggest villains in American political history. A truly destructive individual.
3
The man who called a vote for a Russian oligarch but not for 800,000 federal employees.
6
One has to wonder how Mitch McConnell lives with himself! He is both a puppet and a craven manipulator. Does he really not understand what he--and his cohert--is doing to this country? Why does no one in the Senate stand up to this dreadful man? I despair...we must find a way out of this mess. And ride Mitch McConnell out of town on a rail.
2
There's a scene in the movie Inherit the Wind in which Spencer Tracy, as Henry Drummond, the Clarence Darrow-like defense lawyer, says to a smug, overconfident news reporter, E.K. Hornbeck, played (well) by Gene Kelly ... it comes at the close of 1961 Hollywood's take on the Scopes Monkey:
"Hornbeck, you never pushed a noun against a verb unless it was to blow something up."
And that is Mitch McConnell's track record and tenure in Congress. He never legislates unless it is to blow something up. (Think of his efforts during the recession, in which he attempted to make things worse by doing nothing, all to hang a sour economy about the neck of an incumbent Democrat, never mind how many everyday folks lost big on that.)
Now McConnell is stranded in an uncomfortable bed of his own making. If there is something sneaky or underhanded to do (just ask Merrick Garland), or a disingenuous speech to make (like nearly all of his Senate floor remarks), you won't find Mitch on the sidelines. He's doing what he can to blow things up. You will, however, find him scarce, apparently, when the mantle of leadership calls.
Like when the economy was going down in flames, Nero Mitch fiddled. And the sounds you hear now, in this government shutdown, is Mitch fiddling again.
1
I don't know if these clowns have figured it out, but all of the things they give Donald Trump credit for, i.e., tax cuts, Supreme Court justice, deregulation, they would have gotten from any Republican on the debate stage in 2016 with a Republican Senate and a Republican House. And they would have gotten it without destroying the Republican Party.
1
An article appeared on "Bourbon Mitch" a couple of years ago. The gist of the article was that he had no moral center, and that his only goal was political wins. He's never changed. Couple that with the fact that he represents a backward, ignorant mass, who know nothing about him, and the picture comes into focus.
2
Oh My God Homans! Indeed the Second Coming is at hand.
It is the democrats who have sent this country into a tail spin searching for a moral center unable to find a compromise. Like the falcon unable to hear the falconer to there is no institution left to guide them back home!
Every moral issue having been reduced to sterile Gnosticism in which even the sex of a child is questioned and reduced to an academic social construct, is it any wonder we are in this situation inescapably locked horns?
Trump is seeking genuinely seeking a compromise, Pelosi is seeking to humiliate her opposition.
Don't fool yourself, say what you will, the moral argument favors President Trump. The democrats have been reduced to rationalized their position against their previous positions in which they promoted border security including barriers and immigration reform.
It's disheartening to go through this profile of the master obstructionist during the current government shutdown. I'm guessing the accompanying photos were taken in Madame Tussauds.
He's the grim reaper of American democracy and is unapologetic about it. He beams about his "victories" when refusing to reach across the aisle to move the government forward and it's the exact opposite of what the Senate should be. He doesn't care about his public image, but I sincerely hope he will go down in history as a man who single-handedly tore down the institution that he *apparently* so deeply cherishes.
1
Nothing is permanent in American politics, and so all the harm that McConnell has done to America, from damaging the cause for national healthcare, to preventing a moderate judiciary that wasn't just stuck in right-wing ideology, to helping to elect and promote a Russian asset as POTUS, will eventually be undone, and part of the reason will be that McConnell provided the energy for the moderate forces in the country to organize and fight back.
McConnell's tenure as the right-wing agenda promoting majority leader will be remembered the same way that Bull Conner's tenure as police chief in Alabama or Joe Arpaio's tenure as sheriff in Maricopa county. And most of all, he will be Trump's right hand man in promoting the anti-trade, anti-immigration, pro-Russia agenda. Since Mitch loves catching spears, we should all continue to throw them his way and remember every day the damage he has wrought on America. And if the Democrats ever manage to take back the Senate majority, one of their primary goals should be exact as much retribution on McConnell as is possible, with no pulled punches, because we all know by now that when the shoe was on the other foot, McConnell did all he could to kick moderate and liberal Americans as hard as he could.
4
Trunp and McConnell are actually very much alike. Both have acted in their own self-interest and disregarded what was best for the country. While Trump may be a more disgusting human being, they'll both go down in history together as abject failures and national embarrassments.
4
Thanks to Charles Homans and the NYTimes for focusing on Mc Connell's crucial role in promoting for the last 10 years and now again the hegemony of his party at the expense of the country and its most venerated institutions. While Trump has been an incompetent , pathetically egocentric and naively irresponsible President, Mc Connell has been a skilled, conniving and ruthlessly irresponsible Senate Majority leader. One can only hope that the nation will ultimately survive his Machiavellian machinations and tenure.
1
In his late 70s. No kids. WHY does he care about being so malicious? WHY can’t he just sit out on his back porch in a rocking chair and leave us alone?
3
Democrats: Job #1 in 2020 is to oust donald & Pence. Job #2 is to insure McConnell does not get yet one more term. Almost nothing else matters.
2
There is a great ending scene in The Godfather II when Don Corleone, alone in the garden with his grandson, playing, dies of a weak heart. I'm not wishing ill-will, just remarking at the alone-ness that is Senator McConnell
Simply put, Mitch McConnell is a traitor to our Constitution and our country.
His allegiances are to his party and special interests i.e. corporations and the wealth class -- not the democratic stability of our country.
My wish is that Don Trump goes down, he takes this clever enabler with him. No doubt he will . . . .
1
An article by Daily Kos, June 14, 2019 made McConnell’s behavior make sense. The article lays out several reasons for McConnell’s slavish devotion to Lying Donald, the Russian asset in the White House, ceding the power of the Senate, and refusing to do his job, or keep his oath of office.
The one reason that really connected the dots for me was the Chao connection to the Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao is the daughter of shipping magnate James Chao.
“Elaine Chao is the Secretary of Transportation in Trump’s cabinet, and the Chao family maintains extensive contacts and business investments in China including a seat on the Board of the Bank of China which is partnered with the Russian VTB Bank that is part-owned by oligarch Oleg Deripaska who shares ownership in Rusal with Viktor Vekselberg whose business partner Len Blavatnik donated $3.5million to McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund.”
Maybe we not only have a ‘Russian asset’ in the White House, we have one in the Senate, as well.
Charles Homan, maybe your next article should be into the Chao connections. Its her money that made him a multimillionaire.
2
There once was a man who said we will do everything we can to make sure Obama is a one term president.
The utterance of a weasel who shamed our country and who with those words, spit into the face of President Lincoln.
1
McConnell is despicable, yet he keeps getting elected and appears unlikely to be replaced any time soon. Progressives should be asking "why?" and then listening to the answer.
Charles Homans's piece is almost like a story from Rupert Merdoch's propaganda machine Fox.
What Mitch McConnell has really done while holding immense power is help deny climate change, block voting rights, block universal health care, allow increased pollution of air, water soil, diminished a woman right to choose, given a tax cut to the .01 percent, blow up the deficit, etc.
Even worse he has remained silent while a foreign power has manipulated our election process, and manipulated the boy king, Donald Trump. All of this has been to the detriment of America and the world. Donald Trump is already, the worst and most damaging and corrupt president in the history of America and Mitch McConnell will be known historically as his handmaiden. Please don't put lipstick on this pig.
4
Mr. Homans,
Did you ask Senator McConnell how much money he has accepted from Russian oligarchs?
Or Putin's Russia via the NRA?
2
When the history of the first two decades of the 21st Century is written,
two distinct villains will stain those pages.
One lied to the nation and led America into an illegal war of aggression in Iraq:
Tater Cheney.
The other, albeit with the down the line support of his party,
created obstructions that destroyed Senate rules,
denied a President a Supreme Court appointment (and myriad other judicial appoints),
and now keeping the government closed down for a month and counting.
While claiming to be an "institutionalist", Monstrous Mitch has become the reef upon which American Federal governance is foundering.
McConnell's totally Chicken mitch attitude, his cowardice, his ignoring the good of the nation,
will leave him with the "mark of Cain" as his mantle in history.
Shame.
1
what a telling photo - McConnell sitting alone in the only chair in an empty room - apropos of nothing
1
So McConnell wants to be seen as a sphinx.
1
Mitch McConnell doesn't need to control the Executive branch directly and it isn't within his interest anyway. His people are doing that for him.
Grassley has the tax break on inheritances.
Hatch got his hands on public lands.
Sessions stacked the courts.
Graham and Cornyn got the arms sales.
And everyone got privatized prisons to invest in.
His fingers were down in Paul Ryan's pocket to get the destruction of organized labor.
All McConnell has to do now is get Social Security and Medicare off his desk and he's outta here.
And Senator Marco Rubio will then take control over smashing health and human services after he's gone.
This president was the biggest boon to these guys since attendants in restrooms.
227
Mitch McConnell`s greed for power is obscene meets no bounds.
All the man wants is to win at any cost. Let`s make sure he loses his seat when someone really able beats him in his game.
7
He doesn't cooperate with the enemy, er, other party when he is in power, and he doesn't cooperate when he is out of power. Yes, he's been a terrific winner if you understand politics the way he does. But it's an understanding perversely different from that in Plato, Aristotle, and our Founding Fathers. And there's nothing admirable in it at all.
9
The legacies of both McConnell and Trump will center on the reaction to their extremist, anti-majoritarian actions which failed to pass the key test of having a proper public purpose.
McConnell's opposition to campaign finance reform has helped entrench in public office proponents of fossil fuels and of an extremely expensive and ineffective health care system. The drag on the environment, health outcomes, and the economy is huge and remedial costs will be tens of trillions of dollars.
Another outcome of having the most parochial Republican senators that money can buy is forfeiting to the courts the function of legislating on contentious issues.
What might the reactions look like that will be attributable to McConnell?
A federal law imposing on the Senate time limits on acting on judicial nominations. Enlargement of the Supreme Court for a period of 20-30 years to nullify the McConnell Theft of the 2016 vacancy -- the vacancy which put Trump over the top in the election. Imagine the gratitude of the judiciary for having its stature degraded by McConnell and subsequently Trump: nil.
The longer that McConnell and Republicans thwart policies favored by super majorities of the public, the more likely the Constitution will be amended to set term limits for Congress and limit campaign financing to public funds.
6
I think McConnell, his decedents and supporters will be surprised how history will judge him. I don't believe he will be compared to the great politicians in American history. Rather he will be seen as an outlier due to his support of things the vast majority of citizens oppose. His rejection of campaign finance reforms along with his disdain for financial regulations will be remembered. These are just two items that help undermine the democratic values of this country: fair elections and income equality. The strength of our democracy depends on these items, among so many others that he has worked to undermine, that he can't possibly be seen as a patriot of democratic institutions.
44
How different we human beings can be from each other! While some great people, such as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, FDR, Nancy Pelosi, MLK, and others wish to improve the lot of humankind, we alternately have McConnell. He wishes to leave his mark as an obstructionist. He prides himself on the ways in which he has “gummed up” the political process to override the will of the many in favor of the will of the few.
McConnell has been a blight on the American Democratic process. The rot of his cancerous ways will haunt us for some time, with most of the harm falling on the politically disenfranchised or politically weak among us.
He is like a mythical figure in an Aesop’s Fable who has sold his soul to the devil for eternity, in exchange for power and riches during his short life on this earth. What an awful man.
148
I couldn’t agree with you more. He has changed America negatively with his horrible conduct. Democracy has greatly diminished under his tenure. We should all be very afraid of what is to come.
2
McConnell is a liar and a thief, a craven political hack, and history will remember him as such.
He shredded the Constitution and disrespected the votes of millions of Americans when he denied Merrick Garland a hearing and a vote. He put Kavanaugh on the court in the face of his lies under oath before the Senate. If there is any justice, the House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings to get to the bottom of Kavanaugh's lies.
Now, during the longest government shutdown in history, he may as well be in the witness protection program. It is very difficult for me to think of two more despicable figures in modern American politics than Trump and McConnell.
Please, good people of Kentucky, do not inflict McConnell on the nation again.
116
@Valerie Elverton Dixon
Thanks very much, your post is excellent.
1
Thank you for the opening sentence. I'm teaching "Things Fall Apart" to my sophomores and we just analyzed Yeats's "The Second Coming." Since Trump,
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
Or to put it in Trump-speak: it's a mess.
21
If there is a "correct" analysis of the trajectory of the Republican Party in the United States it would have to be the simple necessity of two party system.
Though my politics are largely center left, I see antisemitism on the rise again from the left and the right with anti-Israel bias decidedly from the left.
I see overreach with Historic Preservation and with "under-building", in San Francisco where I live and practice as an architect, that, remarkably, reinforces a horrific racism in this most "liberal" of cities.
I am without doubt a supporter and believer in climate change science but understand completely the necessity of employing the masses. This is why a green new deal should be bi-partisan.
So, then, how did we end up with this fellow McConnell? The reality of a Republican of merit may have died with John McCain. The Republican Party aligned with the material world and with wealth and the dark forces of status quo industry, sometime after reconstruction and arguably cemented with Herbert Hoover. It has never looked back and, sadly, has forgotten its roots as Lincoln's Party.
As the party of Greed, it has now fully collapsed into religious White Nationalism under the chaotic reign of Trump.
McConnell is nothing more than a ruthless pit bull for the very wealthy and ruthless business folks who care not a wit for the future of humanity. He is the tip of an iceberg already penetrating our ship of state. Its past time to rise up.
27
@David Kesle Well said@David. I found reading this article both difficult and impossible to stop. I feel I am in a moral gulag and have searched for a way to survive this nightmare with my soul intact. I read a review in this paper of a book about reading Proust in the gulag. I have ordered this book and decided that looking to not only my political activism, but the transcendence art offers to be my only saving grace.
@David Kesler Anti-Israeli is NOT anti-semitism.
1
The first sentence is a lovely metaphor for the W.B. Yeats warning in The Second Coming: "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." Thank you, Mr. Homans.
16
This is an excellent bio on the Senator, but fails to address the fundamental flaws in the US CONSTITUTION that prevents the Senate from advancing real liberty and freedom. The Senate was created to preserve slavey. After the Civil War it spent the next 100 years opposing the implementation of civil and voting rights.
The Majority Leader and the US SUPREME COURT have set up a campaign finance system that favors blind contributions going to candidates. The consequence is that a vary small number of large contributors can pool their resources to support GOP candidates in states with low population, and inexpensive election cost. The court and Mc Connell equate money with free speech. This results in a GOP focus on States like Wyoming or Alaska with a population 1/70 the population of California.
This essentially permits the 15 least populous States to have an outsized control of the Senate and the implementation of modern policies.
Citizens should be permitted to contribute reasonable resources to the candidates of their choice, but only in the State where they are registered to vote.
26
I’ve been looking for something like this very good piece on McConnell. I’m also looking for an investigative in depth piece on how he got so rich and what happened with his first wife and (now) adult children. I’m interested in his relationship with China and Russia and any legislation he may have promoted to benefit those countries. And I’d like to know how many of his relatives work in Trump’s executive branch and whether his wife, Elaine Chao, used her two cabinet positions in Republican administrations to further the interests of her father’s shipping company and China.
54
Of course, all of what you’re suggesting could true, just as the suggestion that Pelosi made certain rules that benefitted her husband Paul’s business interests.
Look everyone, our very own Marshal Philippe Pétain!
Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans will be judged by history just as Pétain and the Vichy government has been judged by history.
29
Next: can the lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court rule be rewritten? Perhaps this exposure will begin a consideration of that prospect. It is not credible that the founders ever intended to create Gordian knots that would strangle the practice of democracy.
28
Yes it can, but only via constitutional amendment. Tough sell.
I can't help but think that McConnell's actions have done more than any other person (including Trump) to tear down democracy these past 10 years in the US.
The Senate was not designed to be only a one-man gets to vote. McConnell's is the only vote that really counts in the Senate. They can and do have at times 99 other senators wanting to do something but McConnell does not. So it do not get done. How's that for a small population state person controlling the rest of the country.
Trump will be gone someday and we (the US people) will fix any ils that Trump has brought on us. However, McConnell unless voted out (not likely) will continue to destroy our democratic processes. How sad.
History will not look kind on McConnell.
67
I personally admire McConnell for one thing and the one thing only and that is his commitment to politics at any cost quite often at the cost of very people he represents.
7
@HCJ Party first, country second.
Only useful thing McConnell has done for the common person (of whom one would presume there may be a few in Kentucky) is prevent the feds from assessing an excise tax to the earnings from Berea College's endowment. Berea, as someone helped Kentucky's senator figure out, does not charge its student's tuition. An excise tax of 1.4%, as the government charges other university endowment earnings, would cost 16 Berea students an opportunity to study there. Of course McConnell was of no help to say, Cal Tach, where the excise tax - now being assessed - also cost students their opportunities.
10
Unfortunately, it appears that 800,000 Kentuckians have the outsized power to shape the direction of the country and the world. McConnell does so much damage with so little popular support.
52
One word: calming. Although I don't agree with the right (after all, I'm on the left), it appears that McConnell's operating from a "make the institutions more conservative" point of view than a "tear the institutions down" point of view.
That said, I don't think a judiciary that leaves 50% of Americans (remember, half of all people are more liberal than the other half) is going to be an ideal solution. With luck, term limits on judicial appointees will come into the picture at some point. When the constitution was written, Amercan's lifespan was about 40 years, which led to a natural term limit. Now, it's double that.
Allowing your decisions to be informed by history is a good idea. Humans are humans, after all, and will probably react to stimuli much as humans in the past have. That said, we're changing a lot of things in ways that have no precedent in recorded history.
3
@Andrew
"When the constitution was written, Amercan's lifespan was about 40 years, which led to a natural term limit. Now, it's double that."
That is the AVERAGE lifespan, not the mean. It was dragged down by the high infant mortality rate. If you made it to adulthood (as, presumably, most supreme court justices did), you likely would live to 60, 70, or 80.
I would agree completely that McConnell is one of the most important political figures in our country right now.
The problem is, between refusing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Obama and the Democrats to call out Russian interference, pushing for looser and looser campaign finance laws, stacking the courts with totally unqualified activist judges (to say nothing of ones like Kavanaugh who may have serious ethical issues), and refusing to end the shutdown that's his president's own making, I don't mean that in a good way.
And that is not a comprehensive list.
54
Acknowledged; Mitch McConnell is a master political manipulator. His only lasting legacy, however, will be a negative one; subversion of the rules of the Senate in service of a feckless agenda. We can only hope that his actions as majority leader have not done lasting harm to the institution itself. In that regard, I believe McConnell is likely to be remembered as The Grand Obstructor and, although his methods may be embraced by others, in the long run those methods will be repudiated by the body politic.
49
I hope McConnell goes down in history as a non entity, if he does gain more then a footnote it would be for his major role in destroying a form of government by the people and for the people and replacing it with an oligarchy.
32
"... at what cost?"
How about the 8 year-long obstruction of a twice democratically elected president, followed by a 2 year conspiracy to destroy the democracy.
Is that too costly?
122
It's hard to imagine a more scorn-worthy soul than Mitch McConnell; rewarded and lauded for refusing to execute his sworn oath. A well regarded obstructionist is still an obstructionist.
56
McConnell may be a brilliant tactician in the Senate, but he is without empathy or compassion, or any sense of fairness or the common good. He has presided over legislation that empowers corporations over people in election financing, takes away health care, and increases the tax burden of the ordinary citizen due to the debt costs of his tax give-away to the already very, very rich. Meanwhile, he has did nothing to inform the electorate that a foreign power was influencing our election. He has done nothing substantial to stop the racist statements and policies of the President, a member and supposed standard bearer of the Republican Party. And he refuses to lift a finger to stop the shut down that hurts federal workers and the economy. I don't know how he can face himself in the mirror every day, unless, like Trump, he has no conscience.
81
McConnell could do way more, such as passing bills our so-called "president" may not like, but will have to either sign or own their failure. Since he refuses to even vote on anything the White House sign, why do we even need him? Maybe we should disband the Senate.
20
Democracy - the cost is Democracy. He has nearly destroyed it.
37
@michellenyc We are a Republic - our forefathers were well aware of ancient history and the long record of the failure of Democracies. Thus our checks and balances - via our three branches of government. Mitch has been a tragedy for our form of government - in particular via his obstructionism of the Legislative Process, and his stacking of the Judiciary. It will be up to voters to get us back on the right course. Dump Trump, Ditch Mitch, send Tea Party ideologues down to the harbor. Register, vote, do your homework on all candidates. Keep in mind that there are some good Republicans out there. We desperately need the continuance of a 2 Party system.
I have easily recognized Mr. McConnell's venality and hatred of everything Democratic. Like Mr. Trump who came down the escalator declaring that most Mexicans coming to the country were rapists and very bad people, Mr. McConnell similarly showed his ignorance and dangerousness to our country and its ethical foundations when he vowed on day one that his only mission was to make sure Mr. Obama didn't have a second term. What I did not recognize was that Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell share much more than venality, they also share "fear" -- Fear of everything, which is, I believe, at the heart of what makes them so dangerous -- History (if we survive these two) will not be kind to them, but my fear is that history may be a bit kinder and gentler than it should be.
31
Granted, the anti-trump articles should continue in every decent journalistic enterprise (e.g not fox, breitbart, national review or any of the other blind lemmings masquerading as news), but the heat should be turned up on mcconnell. Why not? He's an easy target and his ties to crimes are pretty obvious. Where is the investigation into this cowardly excuse of a person who is not qualified for any job?
12
" ... Democrats will stay on offense in the House, where they have already passed a string of government funding bills that Mr. McConnell ... has refused to take up ... McConnell ... plans to bring up legislation as early as Tuesday that would wrap Mr. Trump’s proposal into a broader package ... " (NYTimes, 20Jan2019) Mr. McConnell said he would only allow Senate votes when the Democrats and POTUS agree. But now when Mr. Trump has a proposal with no Democratic input, its full speed ahead. Mr. McConnell's MO at work, party above country, no qualms about abusing power, e.g. Judge Merrick Garland. The current GOP does not negotiate, they connive.
21
This is not a Democracy when we have a President acting like an Authoritarian Leader trying to coerce and intimidate an equal branch of government into kowtowing to get his way by holding the country hostage, enabled by Mitch McConnell the Senate Majority Leader with fear mongering and lies, is a dark day in this countries history.
21
So let me get this straight, McConnell effectively paralyzed and destroyed the Senate for the sake of getting judges appointed to courts both high and low.
So let's just destroy the courts next. Democrats, wherever and whenever they get power, stop enforcing court decisions. Stop obeying injunctions. If we're going to destroy democracy, let's go ham.
13
My most fervent wish is that Mitch lives long enough to see Brett Kavenaugh indicted for perjury and removed from the bench and that McConnell gets to witness the systematic purging of unqualified or tainted judges he has installed in the federal judiciary.
I want him to witness the destruction of his life's work, preferably from the inside of a federal penitentiary. The man is a reptile who has done unspeakable damage to what was a flawed but still functional institution of our government.
37
When all is said and done, McConnell will be the answer to this Jeopardy question:
Name the corrupt, obstructionist, chelonian majority leader of the US Senate from 2015 to 2021.
20
When McConnell was asked if he and Trump liked one another, he described the two of them as "different in every way you can think of."
Yet, I view these two men as very much alike. For each has the same fundamental disdain for tenets of democracy. And I think that disdain for our constitution drives both McConnell's and Trump's decisions and actions.
Their disdain extends to our nation's constitutionally established roles of president and leader of the senate. Their disdain appears to extend, also, to people they pledged to serve.
Perhaps their fundamental similarity explains why both McConnell and Trump appear to enjoy wielding their power to harm, with no guilt over consequences.
16
I used to think that, of the two, I despised Paul Ryan more than Mitch McConnell. Ryan pretended to be a policy wonk, and it was so infuriating to watch a man that proclaimed lofty ideals of free markets, economic prosperity through deregulation, and reduced deficit spending cave to someone like Trump who understood none of that, and didn't particuarly care either way. Ryan was spineless, and I thought he was a fraud for his cowardice in the face of Trumpian chaos and immorality.
Now, I think I detest McConnell more for his shameless, nauseating cynicism. Nothing matters except advancing his agenda, no matter what damage it does to American institutitons. He has abdicated the Senate's role in determining the future of our country because it is more expedient for his policy goals. He will not be on the right side of history.
31
I gave this article a chance. I got through the first half. Couldn't stomach the 2nd. McConnell doesn't care about this country. He cares about himself and power. History will not reflect well on him.
20
Another Repub who has outlived his sell-by date. I fairly certain Dems will be concentrating on ending his career with a loss by electing a dem.
5
Mitch Connell lost do his job not for President Donald Trump a puppet on string.
Face show on Milk Carton at nearest store missing in action , 800,000 Fed Worker need Mitch for next meal , go in Senate and do his Job , People in Kentucky what think send Washington do Job . Not hurt everybody States for a Wall , Its not stop people coming in America.
But reform immigration President Donald Trump fixated on Wall . Be leader Mitch Connell you can be replace 2020.
1
With the possible exception of Trump, it's hard to imagine anyone who has done more hard to our government, government processes, and our nation's respect for the Senate (and for government as a whole) that McConnell.
His right-wing extremism, cynical manipulation of government, and utter lack of any trace of honesty is jaw-dropping, even in these dark days of incompetent, corrupt, and mendacious people in government. And then there are all his prejudices and biases... a truly evil old man.
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@NYer You didn't mention his taking millions in campaign donations from Russian oligarchs.
2
McConnell has an Irish name, but he sure ain't fightin' Irish. He should be working with Pelosi to get the government back on its feet. Never mind our "My way or (you know)" president. Congress is the branch our much vaunted founding fathers put first. It needs to reclaim its place in government NIW!
6
Mitch McConnell's behavior makes one think that Donald Trump has a firm grip on his testicles and is squeezing them really tightly to get his way.
6
If your proudest achievement is blocking the legitimate appointment of a new Supreme Court judge and in the process undermining the very fundamentals of our democracy then you are seriously deluded about what your legacy will be.
Alonh ith te worse President since Buchannan we have the worst Senate Majority leader since the days of Jim Crow.
15
Traitor Mitch McConell is getting exactly what he and his Robber Baron brethren want.
Destruction OUR government 24/7 in every possible way. Who cares if 800,000 people's jobs and lives are on the line? Not him. Who cares if local businesses that depend on government workers' purchases are being destroyed? Not him. Who cares if FBI and other workers will lose part of their health insurance and, perhaps, access to security clearances? Not him. That's what they want.
The ugly little man finally figured out a way to get his 15 minutes of fame and he's basking in the supposed "power" he's abusing.
He must go. The sooner the better. China would probably welcome he and his wife. They must go along with The Con Don and Minister Pence. Then Speaker Pelosi will become President of OUR United States of America and start setting things right.
46
Great article. And it fills me with hope.
I hope that Mr. McConnell and I live long enough to witness the destruction of his republican party.
I hope that Mr. McConnell's name is forever tied in history to Donald Trump.
I hope history remembers Donald Trump as the president who tried to destroy democracy.
I hope that I live long enough to be able to sit down with my grandchildren and explain to them who Mitch McConnell was, what he did, and how he helped diminish America.
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McConnell is the most partisan majority leader ever. He puts party and ideology before country always.
If he is right that you only put on the floor of the Senate bills the President will sign, then the President is a king. The duty of Congress is to debate issues, formulate legislation, and pass on to the Executive branch. If the President vetoes the bill, Congress has recourse in overcoming the veto. Protecting senators from failure in the 2020 election is party driven, not nation driven.
McConnell is too clever for his own good and that of the nation. He is a Senator first and always. He should act that way.
39
McConnell has never once stated how or why the things he is most notable for (obstruction, delaying votes, denying hearings on judicial nominees) are good for the country or its citizens. Never once. At the same time, the press has never had the nerve to ask him, either.
33
This shutdown is as much on McConnell’s shoulders as anyone else. By refusing to stand up to the president as a co-equal branch (and pushing past the expected veto), McConnell has abdicated at once his oath and his dignity.
As his puppeteer would say: sad.
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@Andrew Martinez-Fonts
I don’t think he is refusing to stand up to trump. I think he is just fine with the government shut down. If he wasn’t, he would be working to end it - doing what is best for the country, not his party’s hate based policies and not trump’s tantrums. In my opinion, mcconnell is the puppeteer, not trump. Whichever one is the alpha though, greed & racism propel them both. Two peas in a pod.
20
Mitch's be all and end all goal is to be reelected in 2020; hence his reprehensible behavior during the shutdown. His likeability sits at 17% in Kentucky while Trumpelstiltskein's is 55%.
That's why Mitch will not allow a veto proof bill to come before the Senate. If he crosses the Donald (thereby further depressing his ratings in Kentucky), he risks not being reelected.
Mitch's selfish focus on himself to the detriment of all Americans - particularly the children, the disabled, the seniors at the bottom of the economic pile - is simply appalling.
25
@Andrew Martinez-Fonts. Worth repeating: the shutdown is intended to demonstrate that the country can manage with less government. The Tump/Republican $1.5 trillion wealth giveaway--marketed as tax reform--has shorted the government of needed revenue. The tax revenue contributed by corporations is the lowest in 75 years. An estimated $1 Trillion is being added to the federal debt, tariffs are hurting growth. What to do? The Trump-Republican strategy is to underfund government oversight departments (EPA, IRS, etc.); cut regulations, programs, services, eligibility (HUD, SNAP, etc.), and privatize government (VA, etc.) including killing the ACA. They can't cut two of the largest budget items SS and Medicare, but they can cut government overall. This is their cynical end-game. Expect Trump (et al) to claim "The country did just fine during the shutdown, private parties stepped up and did the patriotic thing, we don't need that much government." And they'll continue to ax programs, personnel, services, and eligibility.
15
As I approach 50 yrs old, my greatest hope for my daughters is to see the end to old white man entitlement. They are witnessing the horrors of letting one gender and one race control this country and they are motivated for change. They are inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Two more years of this craziness - we must never relax again.
1464
I don’t like entitlement either, but we just had a black president for 8 years, two black attorneys general, and female democratic nominee for president who should be president.
This narrative or the evil white man just divides the nation further and really is misleading given the examples in the first paragraph.
For the record, I voted for Obama twice and Hillary. Let’s also not forget a southern white man nominated Ginsburg to the Court.
You can despite Mitch McConnell ( I do) but let’s leave race and gender out of this.
That’s Trump’s game.
81
How wonderful that you cite as inspiration a woman in her eighties and one in her twenties!
20
The fact that you can name the few who are not white and not men in one paragraph demonstrates that it is not Trump’s game, it America’s dilemma.
Mitch does not represent all white men, but he is the face of what needs to change in our society if we want any progress and equality for all.
34
McConnell blocked Merrick Garland and then got rid of the 60 vote threshold.
Neither Gorsuch nor Kanvanaugh would have been confirmed.
With that, we will get more Citizen's United which is bad for the country.
Add to that all McConnell's obstruction during Obama.
And the 2017 Republican tax cut that increased the deficit from $600 Billion to $1 Trillion.
The expected increase in the debt over the next 10 years is $12 Trillion. That is $80,000 per tax payer.
Every Republican senator voted for it. Not one Democratic senator voted for it.
And that was after 8 years of relentlessly railing against the debt under Obama.
History will not look kindly on McConnell.
2467
@Independent he doesn't care about history because he won't be around to experience history's judgement, but he is here today and enjoys the power he exercises in life.
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@Dave
This is exactly correct. McConnell and other Republicans care nothing about history or anything else other than money and power right now. Besides, history is written by the victors.
122
@Independent If McConnell and his deep supporters have their way, the GOP will be the victors and victors get to write history. Or rewrite it...
Trump's authoritarian impulses embody the direction McConnell and co. want to take the US. They saw long ago that in our constitutional republic, the only way to guarantee legislative power is inviolable was to stack the courts with judges that interpret laws appropriately. They have their propaganda arm (Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting) to fool most of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. They were well on their way to dominating most federal and local legislatures and executive administrations across America. While factions bicker amongst themselves, the real deep state (McConnell's enablers) has stayed the course.
Trump blew things wide open. Not privy to the plan, and unable to sublimate his own ego and narcissism to anyone else's plans, anyway, he has forced the GOP to panic and reveal its undemocratic strategies and tactics, and forced McConnell to have to come out from behind the Wizard of Oz curtain hiding his manipulations.
Putin is Trump's puppet master, but we can more easily see that coming. The really dangerous puppet master is McConnell, and we just might be lucky that Trump's very nature doesn't allow a McConnell to control him; Trump is beholden to McConnell for nothing, and is not someone Trump wants to emulate. We have to see and cut the strings McConnell has on Congress.
124
Has anyone thought to investigate McConnell’s wife? I mean everything else is being investigated why not her?! Just sayin’....
14
To be honest, I do not feel like wasting my time reading about a person whom I believe is a Trump’s Principal Enabler.
History books rarely give much space to Senate Majority leaders.
McConnell will prove the exception: His legacy will be that of a man who encouraged and tolerated the most corrupt, narcissistic liar of a president in our history, a legacy that will put him in competition with Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney as the worst person to serve in government.
Trump is already the worst person government official.
19
I believe McConnell will go down in the history books as the most divisive and destructive senator in this nation's history. The matters in which he takes pride as accomplishments will have a lasting and negative effect on America. Browning is right and as the years go by the negativrs will become ever so more aparant.
25
A loathsome man, doing terrible damage to our democracy. I hope he appears in history books as the despicable man he is. I don't know why that doesn't bother him and the assortment of republicans who slobber after this repulsive president.
18
H. L. Mencken would have had a field day with this guy.
8
@Bob Indeed.
1
Mitch McConnell, with his rope-a-dope obstructionist tactics, is the opposite of a statesman. Fueled by his overweening vanity, he seeks partisan wins (to burnish his accolades) at the expense of advancing the public good. There is no way to shame him into doing the right thing for the people.
19
It is clearly obvious that Mitch McConnell cannot or is afraid to conduct his duties as a public servant for the good of the American Citizens and should step down.
It seems Mitch McConnell finds it more in his own personal interest of his wife's position in the Trump administration by staying in good graces with Donald Trump rather than do what is right for the regular working people of this country.
This Trump-McConnell Republican Government Shutdown is proving that the Republicans in Congress don't know how to legislation or govern, they only know how to do one thing, and that is OBSTRUCT and ruin regular peoples lives.
This is a disgraceful and unforgiveable conduct by Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Congress, all the more reason to vote straight Democrat in 2020!
15
Mitch comes out of the hole he was hiding in. But does he see his shadow? Will he run back in again when the rest of the Senate wants to end the madness?
8
He, more than anyone, is responsible for the transformation of the Republican party into the Trump party.
16