Mitch McConnell's biggest challenge: Is the "Grim Reaper" nearing the final curtain?

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Mitch McConnell's biggest challenge: Is the "Grim Reaper" nearing the final curtain?

By Ira Shapiro
Published September 25, 2022 6:00AM (EDT)



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At 80 years old, McConnell is finishing his 16th year as a Senate leader, tying the record of the great Mike Mansfield for longest tenure. No Senate leader — not even Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert A. Caro's legendary "master of the Senate" — has had more impact on the country's politics and history. McConnell began Barack Obama's presidency by opposing the economic stimulus legislation needed to prevent a second Great Depression, and waged a scorched-earth war against the Affordable Care Act. In Obama's last year, when Justice Antonin Scalia died, McConnell famously took the unprecedented step of refusing to allow the Senate to consider the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. As the election approached, McConnell blocked a proposal for congressional leaders to make a bipartisan condemnation of Russian interference in the election.

When Donald Trump became president, McConnell the partisan obstructionist became McConnell the partisan battering ram. He orchestrated the massive Trump tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and came within one vote of repealing the Affordable Care Act without hearings, committee action or consultation with any affected interest groups. He focused all his experience and energy on his highest priority: putting an extreme, right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, through a corrupted confirmation process. If not for McConnell's iron will and laser focus, Garland would be on the court today, while Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett would not. As McConnell said proudly: "A lot of what we have done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won't be able to do much about this for a long time to come." The constitutional right of women to choose an abortion and the power of states to regulate guns were quickly eviscerated, for openers.

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McConnell's problem is that he lost the battle for the soul of the Republican Party, and unlike Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, he went down without a fight. With a position of extraordinary power in the party and the country, McConnell failed to convict Trump after his impeachments, failed to stop the big lie from spreading in the weeks after the election and has been conspicuously silent as Trump and his MAGA supporters have embraced full-scale election denial and advocated violence. McConnell seriously underestimated Trump's depravity and overestimated his own ability to control the situation. By now, he may have learned the wisdom of George Ball, the Kennedy administration diplomat who opposed the escalation of the Vietnam War: "He who rides the tiger cannot choose where he dismounts."

We should be crystal clear about one other point. If McConnell's fondest hope had been realized — Trump withering away into irrelevance — this year's Senate elections would still pose a crucial test. The principle of Occam's razor, which holds that the simplest explanation for any phenomenon is most likely the right one, applies here. Our politics were poisonous and our government was gridlocked well before Donald Trump became president. The accelerating downward spiral of the Senate and our government correlates 100% with McConnell's tenure as Republican leader. For Democrats, independents and disillusioned Republicans, every bad road leads to and from Mitch McConnell, an architect of division, a champion of inequality and the self-proclaimed "grim reaper" of progressive legislation. The 2022 Senate elections present the first opportunity for voters to pass judgment not only on Donald Trump and MAGA extremism, but also on McConnell and his Republican Senate colleagues, who consciously failed to protect our democracy from Trump's assault but gave us a radical Supreme Court majority prepared to take away our freedoms and erode our right to govern ourselves. Nothing would change American politics more profoundly and rapidly than a huge turnout that produces an expanded Democratic majority.

Full opinion piece

[Frustratedlady]

1. He has become an unbearable, wicked man who will hopefully live to see the damage he has done.

As he weakens as a man, he tries to put forth a venomous, ugly demeanor to look like a macho man and scare people. The only thing he has done--particularly since Obama took office--is to put the country back many years. No progress due to his obstruction.

[pazzyanne]

2. Exactly! nt

[The Jungle 1]

3. Turtle head and his wife are very rich.

They made money off government construction contracts.
Why do republicans think collecting money is the most important thing in the world?
Why is there no humanity in the republican party?

[Oldtimeralso]

4. What about Iowa's Grassley

63 YEARS at the public payroll, that's not counting his crop subsidies. Enough obstruction to the common people and grift from the special interests.

[Frustratedlady]

6. Grassley has become a "do nothing" politician. Don't speak, don't stir up the water and don't get

in trouble. How many times do you see him/hear him? He's waiting to retire until one of his family members (grandson, I think) can take his seat.

[wnylib]

10. But Grassley can't hold a candle to the evil that is McConnell.

[Crowman2009]

5. He can't fillibuster the grim reaper.

[Lonestarblue]

7. McConnell is one of two Republicans leaders I rank as the most destructive to the US.

The second is Newt Gingrich. Together they have come close to destroying the democratic principles on which this nation was founded. Their evil actions, solely for personal gain and power, have set the country back decades—and, as in the days of the Great Depression when we had a country on the edge of collapse, we will need an FDR level leader and a strong Democratic Congress to right the many wrongs these two and their political party turned into a lunatic asylum have created.

The New Deal saved the US in the 1930s through strong government actions. While Biden has achieved several good pieces of legislation, we need to go further with bold ideas such as
—universal healthcare,
—better control of military spending, too much of which goes into the pockets of wealthy shareholders of the military contractors,
—investment in high speed rail and public transportation,
—a completely new tax system that eliminates all the special privileges such as those for real estate investment and fossil fuel development (along with a rational plan for reduction of reliance on fossil fuel),
—an overhaul of financial regulation that reinstates much of the New Deal laws that Republicans have eviscerated (Elizabeth Warren knows what this is),
—an updating of the federal court system to add more judges where needed and to balance the Supreme Court with four more justices,
—new legislation guaranteeing personal rights such as access to abortion, safety for LGBTQ, and consistent voting rights across the country that includes making gerrymandered districts illegal,
—and finally, a new religious freedom act that specifies the clear separation of church and state and prevents the excuse of religious objection to discriminate against minorities as part of a public business.

Do we have the Democratic will to get these things done? Maybe, but we need voters to understand that the country is on a precipice that is currently leading to a failed nation and vote accordingly. Too much of the media is not helping communicate this message, and that is a big problem that is hard to overcome. This November’s election is one of the most consequential in our history. I’m hoping for an outcome at allows us to keep moving forward.

[wnylib]

11. I will celebrate the passing of both,

along with Agent Orange.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. One thing to remember too

is that although it seems like he had been in that leadership position forever (as if comparing to the House, which had been co-opted by the GOP loons for so long - between 1995 - 2006, and then again from 2011 - 2018), in reality, the Senate has shifted back and forth during that time and Turtle was only Majority Leader for 5 years, from 2015 - 2020 (Harry Reid was actually in there longer from 2007 - 2015).

However during his brief foray in that position, Turtle managed to cause irreparable damage to the U.S. judiciary, our entire system of democracy, and any sense of sanity and decency.

[niyad]

9. May he, and his enablers, receive everything they deserve.

[wnylib]

12. O can't recommend this post enough for

the truths that it speaks.

[czarjak]

13. Denial is one hellofa drug.