Jane Mayer On the Mitch McConnell Problem

[ancianita]

From next week's New Yorker:

Then McConnell directly accused Trump of having “provoked” the mob. Jim Manley, who served as the senior communications adviser to Harry Reid, the former Democratic Majority Leader, told me, “There is no going back now. He has decided to cut his losses, and do what he can to make sure Trump is no longer a threat to the Republican Party.” McConnell and other Republican leaders, Manley suggested, “have gotten as much out of Trump as they can, and it’s now time to make sure Trump is damaged goods.”

But the risks for McConnell and other Senate Republicans are high. It’s never good for a party leader to get out too far ahead of his caucus members—he risks losing their fundamental support. Senator Lindsey Graham has criticized McConnell’s decision to blame Trump for the Capitol riot and has warned that, “without Trump’s help” in 2022, “we cannot take back the House and the Senate,” adding, “If you’re wanting to erase Donald Trump from the Party, you’re going to get erased.” McConnell’s maneuvers have also stirred the wrath of such powerful right-wing media figures as Sean Hannity, the Fox News host known for his unyielding sycophancy toward Trump. Hannity has called for McConnell to step down from the Party’s leadership in the Senate.

But if McConnell can muster the additional sixteen Republican votes necessary for a conviction—doing so requires the assent of two-thirds of the Senate, and the fifty Democratic senators are expected to vote as a bloc—he will have effectively purged Trump from the Party. Moreover, after a conviction, the Senate could hold a second vote, to bar Trump permanently from running for any federal office. Such a move might strengthen McConnell’s clout within the Party and help his wing of traditional Republicans reëstablish itself as the face of the G.O.P. Al Cross, a veteran political reporter and the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism, at the University of Kentucky, said, of McConnell, “I think he sees a chance to make Trump this generation’s version of Nixon, leaving no doubt who is at the top of the Republican heap.” Banning Trump would also guarantee that a different Republican will secure the Party’s nomination for President in 2024. Otherwise, Trump threatens to cast a shadow over the Party’s future.

Jentleson, the former Senate aide, thinks that McConnell and his party are in a very tricky spot: “The glue that kept the Tea Party and establishment Republicans together during the past few years was tax cuts and judges. And McConnell can’t deliver those anymore. So you could basically see the Republican Party coming apart at the seams. You need to marry the forty per cent that is the Trump base with the ten per cent that’s the establishment. McConnell is like a cartoon character striding aside a crack that’s getting wider as the two plates drift farther apart. They may not come back together. If they can’t reattach, they can’t win.”

There is another option: McConnell could just lie low and wait to see if the Democrats self-destruct. A divisive Senate impeachment trial may undercut Biden’s message of bipartisan unity, hampering his agenda in the crucial early months of his Presidency, when he needs momentum. McConnell has already seized on the fifty-fifty balance between the parties in the Senate in order to obstruct the Democrats. He’s refusing to devise rules for moving forward on Senate business unless Schumer yields to his demand not to alter the filibuster rule...

McConnell could conceivably make a play that would avoid a direct showdown over convicting Trump. A conservative legal argument has recently been advanced by J. Michael Luttig, a prominent former federal appeals-court judge: the Senate, he says, has no constitutional authority to hold an impeachment trial after a President has left office.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/why-mcconnell-dumped-trump



We're been more aware than most about this situation, but Mayer's audience includes the moneyed class whose support McConnell is deeply worried about losing.

Her details factor into why Schumer must seize the moment to declare the Democrats' shift away from the national view of a do-nothing Senate.

He could tell McConnell the tiny lie that if MM gets the conviction vote that clears the Trump stain, Schumer will defer on the filibuster rule. Then change his mind.

It's not as if Chuck's only about "doing a McConnell;" it's about the one small change of mind that does tremendous good for this session and others until 2024, and beyond. He can assure McConnell that he can get back to rebuilding Repub credibility to close the party split, and share credit with voters over what Democrats do. Which will be better than MM's got right now. If McConnell tries to "both side" the Democrats, they can recall to GA and swing state voters all the damage Republican theft and lies have done to them.

Democrats can also point to how President Biden can't expect unity from Republicans when they can't even unify their own party. Then Pelosi and Schumer can help further split their ranks through floor votes.

Kamala Harris is paying attention, likely liaising between Biden and Schumer.
Perhaps Biden can sell McConnell on his party's need for survival.

[Irish_Dem]

1. A trapped and cornered McConnell is going to be very dangerous.

His party is coming undone, he has lost power and position.
All of his GOP options have big risks attached.

The only option that will look good to him is to make sure the Dems fracture and fail in their agenda.
We know he will stop at nothing, and it matters not at all to him if he harms the country or Americans.

Power and wealth are the only things that matter to him.

[ancianita]

2. He can't fracture the Dems when Dems can tell how fractured his party is. Does he go with

the Cruz, Hawleys and Graham to re-create the fear of the old days, or does he cut deals with those three Trump holdouts.

[Irish_Dem]

3. I am sure McConnell knows where the fault lines are....

Yes he is in a bind with his own party. No good choices.
That is why he will direct his gaze to us.

[ancianita]

5. And we know where their fault lines are now.

While he runs his mouth to placate both wings, we'll run a country and get more done in less than a year than they did in four.

[Dan]

4. Moscow Mitch has a problem but so does the USofA.

When one-third of the nation is willing to give up our government and turn it over to Trump - there is a bigger problem than the problems of the GOP.

That’s why I believe that every person involved in the “incident” at the Capitol should be charged to the fullest extent of the law, in other words - treat them like the law treats people of color.

What Trump has done to this nation is beyond criminal - and to let him go free is to encourage the next wave of political insurrection. Also, it negates the voice of the 81 million that turned Trump out. It validates to the 74 million that voted for Trump that they were right - and that will lead to our second civil war.

[Irish_Dem]

6. Trump is symptom of some serious problems in this country.

And he made them much much worse.

[ancianita]

7. True. And now the country knows and has acted on that. So have platforms and corporations.

So has the body politic, alive and kicking and wanting action from the first branch. This thread is about how we get to the healing through McConnell and his split party.

We call them afraid of their base and just one man.

We tell them to face what we have faced and get on with hardening up Congress' safety and work, and continue governing.

They get our floor votes on legislation that regains their credibility with those who understand that Trump lost.

While we let law enforcement handle Trump and his thugs, surveil his cult, and let the Lincoln Project badger the ten cult exploiters in Congress -- we Democrats bring public health and the economy back.

[niyad]

8. KNR and bookmarking.