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Monday, February 15, 2021

Should THIS Be the Face of the GOP?


 

Friends, I've been a supporter of Mitch McConnell for a long time, since his Machiavellian attributes have been undeniably useful to the Republican Party and the conservative movement.  I believe we may be approaching a moment in which the Senate GOP would do well to consider new leadership, however.  McConnell is growing less and less popular by the day, and his strident condemnation of President Trump creates the potential for real dissension in the party.  McConnell probably feels that the party needs to exorcise itself of Trump in order to rebuild its image with the American people.  Well, convincing Trump not to run in 2024 may well be in the party's interests, but McConnell should consider the wisdom of the old adage that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with grease.  Lambasting Trump will only make him mad...and, when he gets mad, he gets even!  That's a recipe for internecine strife in the GOP.  I would prefer, therefore, a Minority Leader who respects the pro- and anti-Trump factions in the Republican caucus and in the party as a whole, and who doesn't stoke the fires of Trump-hatred.  The bottom line is that we need Trump and Trump supporters if we're to win any elections going forward, and Mitch McConnell has arguably burned his bridges with both.  That's the subject of my most recent article.


Ditch Mitch!


Question: What do you do when virtually no one likes you?


Answer: You tell the few people who do like you to take a flying leap!


That, at least, is Mitch McConnell's answer to the question.


For years, Mitch has been one of the least popular politicians in Washington, D.C. — in a town where most big-name politicos are way underwater in terms of favorability to start with.

Recently, Mitch decided that, with no one left in his corner except hardcore conservatives, he might as well go out of his way to alienate them too, by deriding (ex-)President Trump as our Instigator-in-Chief. By parroting the Democrats' talking points about the recent “insurrection”, in other words, Mitch ensured that conservatives would come to loathe him almost as much as liberals always have. Brilliant!

All this would be funny, of course, if it weren't also tragic, both for the country and for the conservative movement. After all, nowadays, the Republican caucus in the Senate is the one thing standing between the Democrats and total mastery over the federal government. In fact, not only does every Republican have to hold together to stop the Dems from packing the Supreme Court, adding new (deep blue) states to the Union, and abolishing the filibuster. Republicans also need at least one Democrat — Joe Manchin, we're looking in your direction — to prevent this cascade of calamities. Thus, it is critical at this juncture in our history that Senate Republicans be well led. And these are the circumstances in which Mitch McConnell, in a fit of pique about the Capitol riot (as well as in the aftermath of the debacle in Georgia which cost him his Senate majority), decided to start an open feud with our former President, who is by far the most popular Republican in the country, and who may well be its standard bearer for a third time in 2024. Incredible!

McConnell's remarks after Trump's recent acquittal, to the effect that the ex-President was “practically and morally” responsible for the riot because, for months previously, he had made comments about the 2020 election which were false and tended to rile up his base, are seriously galling to most Republicans, and for good reason. Yes, Trump spoke often and heatedly about the “stolen election”, but by no means were all his claims “baseless”, as the media would have us believe, and apparently as Mitch himself believes.

Trump pointed to the frightful bias in media coverage surrounding the election, and rightly so. Trump pointed to the extralegal shenanigans that occurred in the administration of the election and the counting of votes in many states, and rightly so. He pointed to statistical anomalies, troubling witness testimony, and the stonewalling of election monitors and of efforts to audit the vote, and rightly so.

In voicing these concerns, Trump was only acting according to his political interests and in accordance with his First Amendment rights. Indeed, does anyone doubt that, in a similar position, Democrats would have voiced many, if not all, of the same concerns? And they would have been entirely within their rights to do so. After all, the right to free speech would not exist, if it were not intended to allow Americans to communicate unpopular and even incendiary ideas. Likewise, the right to challenge elections, the opportunity to litigate them in the federal courts, and the procedures to contest the certification of the electoral college in the Congress, would not exist, unless the Framers and the authors of the relevant statutes had not intended that candidates for office might occasionally make use of them, and inevitably they would do so under contentious circumstances. No, President Trump did nothing wrong in contesting the election — and he did nothing that Democrats have not done themselves in prior election cycles, and will do again in subsequent ones.

Moreover, if the rhetoric surrounding Trump's effort to contest the election grew pointed at times, that too is standard operating procedure in modern politics. Last time I checked, we have the right as Americans to speak our minds, and to grow agitated about it, just so long as we don't cross the line into violence or illegality. And Trump, not to mention Senators Cruz and Hawley, certainly never crossed any such line. That ought to settle the matter.

Frankly, though, even if Mitch McConnell was right, and Trump pressed his case about election fraud beyond the point where it was likely to do any good, or used rhetoric that was, by some definition, “over the top”, that does not make him responsible for the illegal actions of his followers in the course of the Capitol riot, any more than it would make Democratic politicians responsible for the shooting of Steve Scalise or for the carnage that beset our cities in the summer of 2020, because of their rhetorical flourishes (usually misleading, although not always “baseless”) about Trump-Russia collusion and police racism. For, surely, if we were to apply Mitch's pious standards re: the dissemination of misinformation and the cultivation of anger to Democrats, not a one of them would be left un-impeached...not that this seems to have occurred to Mitch himself.

The bigger point is this: the Republican Party may well be one in which Trump-lovers and Trump-haters can coexist, but it is unquestionably also one in which the former massively outnumber the latter. It is incongruous, to say the least, therefore, for someone who seems to regard President Trump as a criminal and a scoundrel to lead a caucus dominated by those who proudly supported him for the last four years, and who may well do so again in 2024.

What makes the situation insupportable, however, is the fact that McConnell's infamous facility for parliamentary maneuvering, which was always his trump card as the leader of his caucus, is now in jeopardy. That's because Mitch's uncanny ability to organize the Republican caucus will inevitably be severely compromised both by his personal unpopularity (even Kentuckians have parted ways with him!) and his forfeiture of the status of “honest broker” between the pro- and anti-Trump factions of the party. McConnell, arguably, was just what Senate Republicans needed, back when Trump was President and McConnell himself was tolerated, if not always liked, by GOP Senators of every ideological stripe. Now, though, by declaring his abhorrence for Trump, McConnell has become a lightning rod and a liability. For this reason alone his fellow Republicans would be justified in replacing him.

Reasonable people can disagree about the merits and demerits of President Trump, as a leader and as a man. One thing which has become clear in the last four years, however, is that those who deprecate Trump have bleak futures in the Republican Party, especially in its upper echelons, because, in effect, by rejecting the head of the party, they are also rejecting the party's base and the populist, patriotic values that animate it. In other words, you cannot hold Trump in contempt without implicitly condemning his supporters as well.

In choosing this path for himself, Mitch McConnell has, whether he or his GOP Senate colleagues yet realize it, destroyed his viability as Minority or Majority Leader. It's time Mitch returned to the backbenches, therefore, and allowed a more pragmatic and genuinely conservative, Trumpian figure to succeed him.


Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.

21 comments:

  1. There is only one thing that can save Mitch now, and that is the public grovel, where he apologizes for his disloyalty to Trump, and begs forgiveness, with lots of tear of course.

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  2. Dr.Waddy from Jack: Your very well argued essay has changed my mind.

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  3. Dr. Waddy from Jack: We owe Mitch very much thanks. He has faithfully championed real America's wishes: especially for a lawful Scotus! But . . . I agree: Donald Trump has more than earned the continuing leadership of the real America.

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  4. Dr.Waddy from Jack: It may well be time for him to concede that the vital representation in the Senate of the real America (vs. . . Schumer...) must be passed to one who trusts Trump's heroically proven leadership. Hawley? Ernst? I would hope it would be one with Mitch's monumental parliamentary skills and his courage.

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  5. Ray, the Republican rank-and-file have turned on Mitch already. I suspect his Senate colleagues are losing faith in him too, but they may be too afraid of him to act. I honestly have no idea how long he'll last as Minority Leader. It may depend on whether he's successful in blocking any of the Dems' initiatives. I hope he will be, but even if he is I'd say it's just a matter of time.

    Wow, did I really change your mind, Jack? My my. That's one of the highest honors one of my articles could receive! Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to turn on Mitch, and I give that advice to Senate Republicans with some trepidation as well, because Mitch is capable of engaging in some mischief on his way "down", and now more than ever we Republicans need to stand together and show discipline and unity. Be all that as it may, Mitch is more despised than Nancy Pelosi now, and by a large margin too. His negatives are just too glaring. To Ray's point, I think the time for groveling has passed. Now is the time to pass the torch instead.

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  6. Dr. Waddy from Jack: I consider it an obligation of an intellectually honest person to acknowledge the superior reasoning advanced by a principled conversant! I visit Waddyisright every day to read well argued and SUPPORTED positions which so often are congruent with my own.

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  7. Be careful what you wish for. If not for McConnell, there is no Gorsuch, Cavanaugh or Comey Barrett.

    Besides, who are you going to replace McConnell with?

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    1. Anyone can be replaced by anyone else. Everyone is expendable. Mitch McConnell is no exception. Lots of "famous" people in Congress, but life goes on. Webster, Clay and Calhoun or still in the history books, and entire books are written about them, but how much space will McConnell get? Maybe he will write his memoirs, and how many people will buy and read them? But then again, our future left-wing history books are already in the process of eliminating the founders or/and demonizing them, much less people of the calibre of McConnell.

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  8. Why, thank you, Jack! Life is all about achieving that delicate balance between realism and idealism, right? We're fellow travelers on that path...

    Rod, you ask a reasonable question: how much damage would Mitch do on his way out, and how easy would he be to replace? I don't have all the answers there, but I find the idea that he's irreplaceable absurd. We have a lot of great, level-headed GOP Senators who should be able to herd the caucus in the general direction of opposing the worst features of Bidenism. Again, being in opposition is in many ways a lot easier than governing! But I take your point that McConnell did good service to the right. To everything there is a season...

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  9. Good point, Ray -- we're all expandable, and never more so than today! We're erasing even the heroes of the past. One wonders whether history will even be permitted when the New Order takes effect. Nothing that has ever been can compare with the sheer perfection of the Marxist utopia to come, after all...

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  10. American Conservatism, a la Mr. McConnell, is rapidly becoming fidelity to the hope that your throat will be slit last.

    - Lee

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  11. Ha! Yes, Lee, McConnell's apostasy is hard to figure. How far leftwards does he plan to travel? How far WOULD he have to travel to earn even indifference from the Left? Pretty darn far! Maybe he's looking forward to a time when the GOP will be in permanent minority status, and its survival will depend on mounting a completely ineffectual, insipidly deferential "opposition"? There are plenty of such models around the globe for us to mimic...

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  12. Nick, when you post ridiculous assertions that McConnell is moving to the left, you lose a substantial amount of credibility. Calling out Trump for his role in the insurrection is not ideological. It's a matter of right v. wrong.

    Beyond that, McConnell is a true conservative, unlike Trump who is an ideological opportunist. If Trump thought adopting liberal positions would make him more loved, then he'd switch in a heartbeat. He knows, however, that no matter what ideological lane he picks that more than half the country loathes him as an individual.

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    1. Rod,

      Define Insurrection.

      Also, Trump's ideological opportunism means that he has been a better conservator than many Conservatives, because he understands fidelity to his PEOPLE, which is the essence of Conservatism. Mitch McConnell is the quintessential, "Northern Conservative," in the sense so eloquently described by Robert Lewis Dabney:

      "This [Northern conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.”

      He who conserves nothing, is not a Conservative, but a political grifter.

      -Lee

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  13. Lee, when you cite a racist to make your argument about who's a conservative, you have lost the argument.

    I am absolutely stunned that you used Dabney. Shaking my head. I see Trumpsters go through all sorts of hoops to defend their cult leader, but this was a first.

    Oh, an insurrection is a violent uprising against an authority or government. On January 6, we saw a violent uprising to overturn a free and fair election for president, which was an attack on the government.

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    1. Rod,

      Genetic Fallacy, well done. It must be nice to be able to dismiss arguments without addressing their content. By that logic it is out of bounds to quote the Founder's, seeing as they were racists too. I assume you're not a hypocrite, so I take it you also dismiss statements from Lincoln, Eisenhower, LBJ, Biden...

      Oh, I'm no Trumpster, I'm much worse. Donald Trump was naught but the American Gracchi, a reasonable attempt to restore, by means of heterodox legal reforms, some semblance of the Old Republic without having to resort to bloodletting. It remains to be seen if the American Gaius Gracchus, will inspire the American Tiberius Gracchus, and whether or not HE will be successful.

      So, were the riots targeting government buildings and monuments for the 8 months prior insurrection?

      - Lee

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  14. Rod, I agree that at least half the country loathes Trump. Sad, but true. Five years of brainwashing had its effect!

    I hope you're right that McConnell remains a "conservative" in some form, because otherwise you lefties will have an easy time of it in the Senate, but I must say Lee makes an awfully good point, via Dabney (who I don't know), that McConnell's ideological/principled core is hard to detect. Yeah, he has his uses. He helped us appoint a host of judges and Justices who aren't rushing in the direction of neo-Marxism -- they're slow-walking us Marx-ward instead. I guess we'll take what we can get...

    Lee's right: if we reflexively dismiss the arguments of everyone who the Left regards as "racist" (let's face it, leftists regard EACH OTHER as racist when they're having a bad day), we wouldn't get much cogitating done, now would we?

    Seems to me that, if an insurrection is "a violent uprising against an authority or government", then you lefties were mounting several insurrections a day for much of 2020. Trump should have herded the lot of you into concentration camps. At least he would have beat you to the punch!

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  15. Dabney preached the Biblical righteousness of slavery. Anyone who can twist the teachings of the Bible in such a horrendous racist manner has to be approached with considerable suspicion on any other arguments. Dabney also opposed democracy as an incursion on Southern freedom.

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    1. Rod,

      Sure, Dabney was wrong on slavery, the whole world was wrong on slavery a hundred years prior to that, and we invoked a myriad number of justifications, what does that have to do with his correct observation that "conservatism" which conserves nothing, can't meaningfully be called conservatism?

      Also, democracy is garbage only ever redeemed by the laws of a republic.

      And discounting the fact that you just moved your goal posts from, "Racists shouldn't be listened to," to, "Racists who justify their racism with the Bible PROBABLY shouldn't be listened to," I take it that you concede that you can't consider or cite the opinions of men like Jefferson, Lincoln, Eisenhower, LBJ, Biden, etc, seeing as they also expressed racist sentiments?

      Nick's right, we live in a violent time, but the violence between the Left and the Right isn't remotely comparable in terms of it's intensity and frequency. If the Right acted towards the Left with respect to it's insurrections, your entire party would have been, figuratively, decapitated of leadership at this point.

      It's alright though, turn-around is fair play. We may be slow to figure out the rules, but we're better players.

      -Lee

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  16. Interesting. Thanks for the primer, Rod. I couldn't care less about Dabney, per se, but surely a person's ideas can be weighed on the merits, especially if they are a historical figure. You realize, Rod, that absolutely NO ONE who lived before the year 2000 would meet your standards of ideological and moral purity. Heck, even Obama opposed gay marriage a few years back. I guess, with that said, Obama has zero credibility? Okay, on that we can agree.

    Lee makes a good point (as he is wont to do): the amount of illegality and violence that flows from leftists simply isn't comparable to the amount that flows from right-wingers. The amount of media scrutiny that said violence generates, of course, is a totally different matter. The media ADORES right-wing nuts, for all the obvious reasons. We're going to be hearing a lot more about them, because that's how you scare people of color into flocking to the polls to vote for dolts like Joe Biden. Hey, there's a method to your madness. I can't deny that.

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