Mitch McConnell: 'The Gravedigger of American Democracy'
Matt Bernardini looks back on the career of the longest serving Senate leader in history and surveys the damage his style of leadership has wrought.
As the Republicans’ assault on America’s democratic institutions continues, they will have to do so without the leadership of one of their most effective and destructive members; Mitch McConnell.
Last month, the 82-year-old Kentucky Senator announced that he would be stepping down as Republican leader in November. McConnell was not only the longest serving Senate leader in history, but also one of the most impactful. And not in a good way.
As some in the media finally give well deserved attention to the idea that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy, McConnell has pretty much gotten a free pass. He should not.
Virtually nobody has done more to set the table for Trump’s illiberal takeover than Mitch McConnell. From his blatant lies about the Democratic party’s policies and his turning the Senate into a graveyard for legislation, to his packing of the courts with right-wing Federalist society judges, McConnell made Trump’s hijacking infinitely easier.
In Trumpian fashion, the Kentucky Senator possesses no real ideology other than the pursuit of power. One might be surprised to learn that early on in his political career, McConnell attended Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. When it suits his agenda, McConnell has invoked MLK’s words, often drawing the ire of the late civil rights leader’s family.
“Mitch McConnell has had the opportunity to bring police reform & voting rights legislation to the floor of the Senate for months,” Martin Luther King III tweeted in 2020. “If he was truly inspired by my father, he would join the fight to eradicate racism through policies that aim at creating peace, justice, and equity.”
Instead of following in Dr. King’s footsteps, McConnell decided to dedicate much of his political career to obstructing another prominent black political figure.
At a retreat with Senators in West Virginia, shortly before President Barack Obama took office in 2009, McConnell gathered his fellow Republican Senators and laid out his vision to make the first black Commander-in-Chief a one-term president.
Alec MacGillis reported the details as relayed from Utah Senator Robert Bennett.
“We have a new president with an approval rating in the 70 percent area. We do not take him on frontally,” McConnell said. “We find issues where we can win, and we begin to take him down, one issue at a time. We create an inventory of losses, so it’s Obama lost on this, Obama lost on that. And we wait for the time where the image has been damaged to the point where we can take him on.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Byline Supplement to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.