Nice Try, Mitch. But You're Complicit, Too.

Mitch McConnell's trying hard. He thinks he can turn this tidal wave around.

But he contributed to it mightily. Five years isn't such a long time. The thread is still pretty thick.

For back then, in 2016, he simply blocked President Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, to replace Antonin Scalia, who had suddenly passed away. He blocked it for ten months, preventing a discussion from ever getting to the Senate floor, preventing hearings from taking place. He gambled that a Republican would replace Obama and that his party could have a shot at that appointment.

Well, it worked. So to speak. Obama's constitutional powers were derailed. It's not like things happened at the last minute: Hearings would take weeks, but Garland would have been installed with plenty of time before the next presidential election. 

"Let the American people decide," McConnell said. Nonsense: He was deciding: Deciding to thwart what Obama wanted once again, as he had done for his entire first term, when, as then Minority Leader, he instructed his Republican colleagues to resist anything Obama wanted for its own sake, to resist because that was the only way they could get their own way, or at least keep the Democrats from getting theirs.

Don't cooperate, in other words. Resist, even though compromise is the lifeblood of democracy. When that ended, we all watched. And plenty of others, definitely a majority of Republicans, are still resisting.

So we got 45 in the White House, who has proceeded to destroy nearly anything decent government has ever meant. He nominated Neil Gorsuch, who hasn't exactly played along with what conservatives have always wanted. But he's not Merrick Garland, at least. He's not what Obama wanted.

And it set a precedent of attitude that has directly passed down to today: a precedent that playing nice is over, that tradition and fairness don't mean anything. That pure power matters, and only that. 45 has only continued the example of what McConnell set: Do whatever I can get away with.

McConnell seized the day. But he forgot that tomorrow was coming.

The attitudes and brazen disregard of norms led to 45's impeachment and trial. It led to the diminishment of American prestige and power internationally. It led to confusion and irresponsibility in handling of the pandemic. It led to economic depression and a possible collapse.

But it has also led to the filling of federal court appointments at a rate almost unprecedented in our history, what with a Republican majority also there. Some of these appointments are purely political and have little to do with judicial expertise. But they're filled. Competence now means nothing, but under 45, it never has. That's another part of 45's legacy. And McConnell's.

Obama figured it all out and, of course, put it quite well. Let me quote his book, p. 675:

It was clear that [45] didn't care about the consequences of spreading conspiracy theories that he almost certainly knew to be false, so long as it achieved his aims; and he'd figured out that whatever guardrails that once defined the boundaries of acceptable political discourse had long since been knocked down, In that sense, there wasn't much difference between [45] and [John] Boehner [then House Speaker] or McConnell. They, too, understood that it didn't matter whether what they said was true (bold print mine)....In fact, the only difference between [45]'s style of politics and theirs was [his] lack of inhibition. He understood instinctively what moved the conservative base most, and he offered it up in unadulterated form.

Yup. All 45 has done is perfected what McConnell began long ago: give them what they want to hear, never mind the truth. He's been simply more blatant and relentless, and of course he's still doing it and will endlessly. Look what it's led to. But he had an excellent example to follow. The blocking of Merrick Garland was a blatant seizure of power, and quite relentless. The stonewalling of any support for whatever legislative proposals Obama wanted was quite relentless.

The liberal news commentators have continued to ask, perhaps rhetorically now, whether 45 will take responsibility for what's happened. He hasn't taken responsibility for anything. Neither has McConnell. Why start now?

McConnell, late to the party, now wants to urge on the Democrats to impeach 45--not because it would be just, but because the Republican Party might repudiate him at long last. But too much water has gone under that dam. McConnell's not taking a moral or even legal stance, either. He's pushing for a successful political result so he and the rest of the Republican establishment (what's left of it) don't have to directly deal with 45 any longer. Good luck with that. Only ten Republican Congresspeople crossed over and voted to impeach 45 today; they're still that scared, and I do mean scared, of the folks on the ground.

McConnell won't easily reverse that. But he has brought much of the atmosphere to its peak. I give him credit, at least, for recognizing that 45 has to go and we need to be rid of him in a larger sense. If he really wants to mute 45's pervasive force, though, that is a task that will take much of the intervening four years.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. One day closer to a vaccine. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark