Why McConnell Is About to Destroy the GOP

[thomhartmann]

Nobody is asking the bigger question: “Why would a professional, lifelong politician and master tactician like Mitch McConnell make such a huge mistake?”

Nobody’s asking, “Why?”

Just like he did with the Covid rescue bill a few months ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just said that there will not be one single Republican vote in support of President Joe Biden‘s infrastructure plan.

Why would McConnell do this?

Why would he give away any bargaining leverage the GOP might have?

Why would he essentially encourage Democrats to make the legislation as expansive, effective and popular as possible? And then let them get all the credit for it?

After all, now that the Democrats know there’s no possibility of any Republican votes, there’s no need for them to negotiate with any GOP senators. There’s no need for Democrats to worry about their Republican colleagues’ feelings, thoughts, concerns or even ask their opinions.

That simple reality has been noted by a number of commentators.

But nobody is asking the bigger question: “Why would a professional, lifelong politician and master tactician like Mitch McConnell make such a huge mistake?”

I believe the answer is that McConnell does not think he’s making a mistake. He thinks he’s right. He thinks he’s going to win.

I believe he has completely deluded himself. He has bought his own BS. And it won’t be the first time senior Republican leadership has done this and then destroyed the GOP in the process.

This is a guy, after all, who spent decades proclaiming Reaganomics and supply-side economics.

He’s probably asserted a thousand times that when taxes on rich people are cut and government spending goes down, good things will happen to the American economy. He’s repeatedly assured his voters that when unions are destroyed the working class prospers.

He’s embraced and endorsed 40 years of de-funding and ignoring America’s infrastructure, even to the point of frustrating Trump’s own infrastructure plan attempts. Over and over again, when proposed by Clinton and Obama, McConnell has suggested that rebuilding our country at the expense of taxing rich people would create an economic disaster.

For most Americans, forty years of experience with these theories that McConnell’s been promoting have proven that they’re largely crackpot BS. They’re fantasies sold to the American public by billionaires and the think-tanks they fund, amplified by right-wing radio and media, to keep the billionaire’s taxes down, their companies deregulated and unions out of their workplaces.

But they’ve been sold so aggressively — from the efforts in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s by people like Hayek, von Misis and Milton Friedman, to Ronald Reagan and the institutional Republican party from 1980 to this day — that many Republicans actually do believe them.

Particularly multimillionaires — who hang out with billionaires — like McConnell.

And McConnell’s is not alone in this belief, even among significant Republican figures.

I regularly invite conservatives on my radio/TV program to defend propositions like those above, and there are several who I’ve come to know personally, and I know for a fact, that they actually believe these things.

Reaganomics hasn’t worked out, they say, because it hasn’t really been tried.

There’s been too much government spending clouding things. Taxes have never really been low enough. There’s never been a true libertarian experiment in America.

If we want to see if these theories actually work, they say, first we have to do away with Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, public schools, public health departments and the whole plethora of government-supported institutions. Those things, they say, have so muddled up and distorted our economic systems that partial measures like partial deregulation and occasional tax cuts promoted by Republicans over the last 40 years haven’t had the success that they could have had in a “pure free-market economy.”

These people, who I know personally, are not saying what they’re saying because their paychecks depend upon it (although that is true of a few others that I know and have met in the media). They’re saying it because they believe it.

They studied it in college from Econ professors whose chairs were funded by right-wing billionaires and conservative foundations. They’ve read it over and over again in conservative books and magazines, and on conservative websites. They’ve been hearing it preached from the highest towers of conservatism their entire lives.

If Mitch McConnell is at all like them, he believes it’s true, too. He believes that rebuilding America using tax dollars from people earning over $400,000 a year will produce a disaster. He’s internalized that message.

Another clue that Mitch McConnell and many of his Republican colleagues actually believe this stuff was revealed at last weekend‘s Utah Republican party meeting, where Mitt Romney was booed.

It’s another sign that the ideology has taken deep hold and spread in the party. It’s become more important than the good of the party itself, as happened in 1964.

If Mitch McConnell is a true believer, he may well be in the “true believer mold” of Barry Goldwater.

If so, this is the second time this has happened in the Republican party in my lifetime. And it may presage the exact same kind of disaster that Barry Goldwater brought down upon the party in 1964.

I was only 13 at the time, but I remember watching the 1964 Republican convention with my dad when Nelson Rockefeller got up and gave a speech calling for moderation, compromise and a commitment to do what was best for the nation.

Referring to Goldwater and the right-wing true-believers who followed him, much like Mitt Romney referred to Trump and MAGAs, Rockefeller said, “These extremists feed off fear, hate and terror. They encourage disunity.” He was booed off the stage, as you can see in this short clip.

Then Barry Goldwater stepped up to the microphone and loudly proclaimed:

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!!”

He brought down the house. The standing ovation lasted for minutes. They really believed him.

Prior to Goldwater’s 1964 candidacy, the Republican party of Dwight Eisenhower had been a pretty moderate place (including VP Nixon’s 1960 race against JFK).

Eisenhower advocated unionization and bragged about how many new union members had joined during his presidency. In 1956, when he ran for reelection, he highlighted how he’d helped increase the number of people on Social Security.

In his farewell address he prayed — literally prayed (14:55 on the recording) — for world peace, in the same speech he used to warn us about the Military-Industrial Complex.

But then the True Believers took over the GOP — to this day.

Goldwater went on to lose to LBJ in a massive landslide, and McConnell may well be leading his own party in a very similar direction.

Goldwater believed what he was saying. I’ve read both his autobiographies and there’s no doubt in my mind.

I can’t say that I am as much of a student of Mitch McConnell as I was of Barry Goldwater back in 1964 when, along with my dad, I went door to door for him in that presidential campaign.

But the first possible and most rational explanation for Mitch McConnell openly stating in advance that there will not be a single Republican vote for Biden’s plan is that McConnell thinks if Biden’s plan passes it will create a disaster.

He thinks that inflation will spike, the national debt will lead to some terrible national default, and/or the stock market along with the entire economy will go in the tank.

After all, that’s what he’s been preaching for 40 years. How hard is it to imagine that he’s come to believe his own sales pitch?

Sadly, for Mitch, all the empirical evidence indicates that his belief is just as misplaced as were Goldwater’s fears of communists in the State Department and the viability of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

The Republican party tried a very similar shtick back in 1920, when Warren Harding was elected President on a platform of dropping the 91% top tax rate down to 25%, deregulating industry and privatizing most government functions. He won that election, and kept those promises.

It led to the “Roaring Twenties” — a time when the very rich got very much richer and working people got screwed — and then straight to the stock market crash of 1929 and what was called for a generation the “Republican Great Depression.”

Perhaps McConnell doesn’t know the history. Perhaps he thinks that era was an anomaly, or an incomplete experiment, or there were other factors that caused the crash.

Or, if you’ve read this far, there’s one other possibility worth considering. Perhaps McConnell’s trying to implode the party to purge it of Trump.

It’s pretty far out, but maybe he’s letting folks trash Romney and Cheney and the rational few left in the party so it’ll fall so low in the 2022 election that Trump will be discredited and purged from the party himself.

That possibility, though, is a stretch. It still appears that the only reasonable explanation for Mitch McConnell refusing in advance to go along with anything Biden is proposing that might help America is that he truly believes that, at the end of the day, Biden‘s plans will be a disaster and he wants to have no part of them.

He’s wrong, but — in either case — he’s certainly not lacking in conviction.

Original post with embedded YouTube clips of Goldwater, Rockefeller and Eisenhower at: HartmannReport.com

[captain queeg]

1. I don't think the rethugs truly believe in reaganomics

I’m not sure what they truly believe, but their only focus has been to stand United against anything the Dems do. Oh well, and to cut taxes to the rich of course, but not because they believe that will help America. Just them and their friends.

[Demsrule86]

4. I think they believe in it myself...it is 'faith' ...not based on empirical evidence.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

6. 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽 THIS 👆🏽👆🏽👆🏽

[BlueNProud]

33. Reaganomics isn't about growth. Its about bleeding the fed government dry

and then eventually destroying soc security medicare etc...

[sprinkleeninow]

54. Who also subscribed to this. Norquist? (Another worker of iniquity.)

[BobTheSubgenius]

46. I think there's a mixture of positions within that group.

Some few are convinced, others are unsure, but going along with The Party Line, because when has that ever failed a Republican, at least in the short term, and some recognize what a cartful of manure it is, but use it as a fig leaf.

[electric_blue68]

2. I sire hope your Goldwater Scenario holds up...

and in; ntense the me what a difference even two years in age makes.

I was 11 in 64. I wasn't yet watching th nighty news, but I was paying attention to local, national and international news to some degree (after all I lived through the Cuban Misdle Crisis, and JFK's assassination).
I didn't hear about Rockefeller's speech. I think i knew who he was since I was an NYC'r.

I do remember the the comments with the young woman putting a flower in a solder's rifle, the image of the Atomic Bomb exploding. That's how I remember it.

Thanks for your always insightful research, and commentary.

[wnylib]

28. I was 14 in 1964. I watched the Dem convention

where Robert Kennedy got a 20 minute standing ovation. That's what Goldwater ran against, even though LBJ was the candidate. LBJ after all, was JFK's vice president.

[electric_blue68]

44. Ah....

I think I've seen footage of that in documentaries. 👍

My first watching the Dems convention at 15 while we were on our summer vacation was 1968.

A rather dull affair...

NOT! Omg.

[wnylib]

52. The 1964 conventions took place

less than a year after JFK's assassination. No Republican was going to win the WH that year.

Goldwater's candidacy was the beginning of the R shift away from centrism and toward the far right. Republicans turned away from the centrism of Eisenhower and Rockefeller and kept moving farther right in order to gain more votes and members with a more populist appeal.

[lagomorph777]

3. McConnell could have purged Trump in the 2nd impeachment vote.

He doesn't want to purge Trump.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

7. Correct.

[uponit7771]

69. +1,

[Probatim]

5. Manchin and Sinema are why Mitch thinks he isn't making a mistake.

[lagomorph777]

8. All three of them are making a mistake.

[BlueNProud]

36. If Manchin actually had any principles

he'd call out turtle for slamming the door on gop support.

[iluvtennis]

41. + agree. n/t

[Celerity]

72. Great point!!

[ancianita]

9. He's a dyed-in-the-wool believer of Austrian austerity neoliberal economics. He's a corporate man.

He believes that a corporate world doesn't need democracy, just corporate campuses and their free markets. And so however corporations govern, that's how the world's people should be governed. That's why many in his senate minority also say "democracy isn't important."

He has a for-profit corporate morality that has nothing to do with human morality, or democratic governance, or a constitution written for humans. For him, fictional personhoods are people. If corporate fictional personhoods run the world, humans better get used to it.

We know how that's worked out in the past, and we have called the corporate control of government and means of production Fascism.

McConnell's senate minority and statehouses are a Fifth Column. They and trumpcult are all Fascists.

[Tommymac]

11. This makes more sense then the OP.

I love Thom, but I think you have 'Trumped' him.

[Bobstandard]

21. The one doesn't contradict the other

In fact, the one gives depth to the OPs thesis rather than contradicts. Both thesis can be correct at the same time.

[thomhartmann]

20. Very well said!

I think you nailed it better than I did! Well done!

-Thom

[ancianita]

45. Well,

your prescience brought it up. I just put my two cents in. We all know that McConnell isn't the problem as much as ) all the trumpcult party dark money donors, their script of lies about economics, corporations and humans, and b) the dupes of their home states.

So thanks for bringing him up, because he's positioned himself to speak for the now out-and-proud Fascists of the voting population.

They are bad for business, as most companies realize now, and bad for humans. Democracy will rise or fall depending on what the rest of us do about them.

[Ford_Prefect]

31. This is really what he believes in as do the others in his camp. This is the heart of Autocracy.

Last edited Wed May 5, 2021, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

I have said before we live in a corporate run world predicted by Rollerball (1975) and I stand by that today. As far as McConnell is concerned de-platforming our democracy is the most important thing he can accomplish.

As much as I respect Hartmann I think he missed the target and ignores the clear influences of the money behind Mitch and his decisions.

The Trumpian nightmare is as much about distraction as it is about division. The time and energy used to fight that fire is needed elsewhere too. The longer that dominates the dialog and upends democratic elections the harder it will be to turn to more important real agendas.

[judesedit]

10. I think McConnell knows how successful Biden's democratic administration will be

due to the infrastructure bill. Therefore, as with Obama, he's vowed to cause them to fail at anything proposed for the good of the country. All of the rethug propaganda will be proven to be bullshit. However, I know I am not nearly as intelligent or well-informed as Thom Hartmann.

[erronis]

58. Yup. I think this is a huge motivation. They want Biden to fail. Even with vaccines.

I think a lot of the anti-vax movement is just to try to prevent the target 70% (or whatever it is) from being hit and being a success.

They'd rather have more Americans, and people around the world, die rather than admit they are abysmally wrong.

[KS Toronado]

12. Excellent insightful reading, keep up the good work.

[world wide wally]

13. It is not in McConnell's DNA to do anything that doesn't benefit him personally

[JHB]

14. I think his main motivator is the same as it was when Obama came in

The more he can deny the Democratic guy success, the better Republicans' chances to retake power and press the conservative/RW agenda.

After all, conservatives make sure their media always paints Democrats as bad guys. Democrats aren't in the habit of doing the reverse, and don't have their own media machine to do it.

[erronis]

59. Ditto this. Simple plan for hopeful destruction.

Since they can't construct anything, might as well as destroy others.

[llashram]

15. this

[gratuitous]

16. Republicans probably are high on their own supply

But in the past 40 years, Democrats have partially internalized so much of this destructive, unsustainable program that sometimes the two parties are indistinguishable in their economic programs.

President Biden, though, is a politician with long experience and a memory that reaches back to a time before Ronald Reagan and the supply side snake oil. He has been in the battles and knows the players. He recognizes the weapons of oppression. He not only believes that government structures and programs are vital to the framework of a prosperous nation, he has seen them work in real life practice. He also has the back-up of people like Senator Warren, who similarly knows that government is a necessary part of any economic system.

The Republicans have committed themselves to the wrong side, and their nostrums have shown themselves to be failures again and again. The public is ready to try something else. Are the media?

[NewJeffCT]

17. I've been hearing about the imminent demise of the GOP

for decades now - it was supposedly happening under Bush Jr as well.

Republicans survived causing the Republican Great Depression of 1929, as well as openly supporting Hitler & Mussolini in the 1930s - similar to Trump & Republicans openly supporting Putin & other autocrats and also allowing the Trump Virus to run rampant throughout the country. And, unlike Republicans losing in a massive landslide in 1932, Trump lost far too close an election decided by tens of thousands of votes in WI, PA, AZ and GA.

I just don't see them dying off any time soon.

[appalachiablue]

19. +1

[NewJeffCT]

48. I hope I am wrong

and the GOP goes the way of the Whigs and Know-Nothings, but I don't quite see it yet

[appalachiablue]

50. They're deathly and wrong but have

so much money behind them it's difficult to imagine the place w/o them.

But we'll see, so much rides on whether we can rise to preserve democracy.

[sprinkleeninow]

55. I don't feature this, but still have some trepidation in my spirit.

[Skittles]

64. yup

pipe dream

[IronLionZion]

18. Unless he has dirty tricks up his sleeve we don't know about

he scuttled Garland's supreme court nomination knowing that Trump would be president to appoint a replacement, not Hillary.

He may have some plans to scuttle the infrastructure plan financially or through other means later and blame Dems. They weakened the ACA as much as possible.

[Progressive Jones]

63. I have no doubt that McConnell is setting some trap. nt

[bringthePaine]

22. seems more likely turtlehead & wife burn it all, haul ass & cash elsewhere

[Blue Owl]

23. Proceed.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

24. Excellent piece!

Many Republican/Libertarians have been pushing the idea that all wealth is EARNED, from hard work and merit, that it's easier for them to accept the actual unfairness and growing inequities too.

Smith Barney didn't work hard enough, it seems, since they're gone now!

But they pushed the faulty ideas in their old Reagan-era commercials too:

[RainCaster]

25. McTurtle wants to go out as a True Believer

He will retire soon, perhaps not of his own choosing. That remains to be seen. He will however, go down as a True Red Republican. One who believed to the bitter end in all the "free market economy" claptrap of modern GOP dogma. May he have a generation lasting effect on the Republican Party.

[Dustlawyer]

26. The answer is very simple.

The Republican (Trump) base will not let them work with Democrats at all. Their monster is out of their control now.

[leanforward]

27. Great commentary by Thom . . .

It dove tails with my economic history memory and education. The GOP folks in office had authorities to head off the depression. And, again it appears "do nothing". Trickle down does not work.

The rich need to pay for the opportunity their significant advantage.

Opportunity Cost.

[SoonerPride]

29. They will take credit it for it when it passes

Just like they did with the Covid plan the Dems passed earlier.

They all vote against it.

Then go back home and tout all the great things it does.

The voters won't notice the difference.

But the super rich donors will.

So to them it is a no lose situation.

Stick it to the Dems to make the donors happy and then take credit when it is popular.

[sprinkleeninow]

57. What really chapped my hide was hearing orangeous emit that he wanted

'recognition as the father of the vaccine.'

[Duppers]

66. Exactly. nt

[uponit7771]

70. +1,

[getagrip_already]

30. It's really very simple.....

Mitch has only one long term goal. To be majority leader with a repug in the wh.

And he knows that won't happen if the american people perceive democratic policies as good for them personally.

So it's scorched earth, and nothing else as long as a dem is in the white house. No successes. No wins. Nothing a dem can point to and say "see, we can govern and you are better off".

He knows the people won't pay attention to what he does, and if it works his senate caucus will grow.

So it's just a cynical power play. It isn't that complicated.

[Glaisne]

32. Just remember

the GOP may be destroyed, but conservatism will always be around. We must be ever vigilant against the right.

[aggiesal]

34. This statement really got to me ...

If we want to see if these theories actually work, they say, first we have to do away with Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, food stamps, public schools, public health departments and the whole plethora of government-supported institutions.

So McTurtle and the (R)'s want to destroy everything so see if their economic theories work?
No thanks, I will fight every inch to keep that from ever happening.

Thanks Thom for this opinion.

[SMoss]

35. Libertarian political economic catch 22

Your analysis is right on. The evidence shows that libertarian policies and trickledown economics do not work. The argument from proponent that we haven’t gone far enough reminds me of the faith healer televangelists in Tulsa, OK, Oral Roberts, when I was a teenager. Parents would bring a critically ill child to hem and he would pray loudly and dramatically, and tell the parents that their faith in Jesus would save their child. When the child died it was because the parents did not have enough faith.
The Milton Friedman, James Buchanan economics and political system were tried in their fullest in Chili under General Pinochet. They brought Buchanan in to rewrite the constitution and set up the new government. The system was a disaster and Chili is still several decades later struggling to repair the damage.

[maxsolomon]

37. Whistling Past the Graveyard, as usual for Hartmann.

McConnell knows a 50:50 Senate w/ 100% GOP obstruction + Manchin = Dem failure.

[peggysue2]

38. The crazy thing is Brownback tried this Reaganomics/libertarian experiment at the state level

Biggest tax reduction in the state's history and Brownback referred to it as a 'grand experiment,' a test of the economic theory, trickle down, supply economics. What happened?

Utter disaster.

Kansas was at the bottom of the pack for economic recovery following the Great Recession of 2008. The policy crashed and burned and the Kansas Revival never materialized. Yet, Republicans still defended it: it wasn't in place long enough, there were unforeseen loopholes that greed heads took advantage of (surprise, surprise), etc. Finally, after years of flat economic growth, the citizens of Kansas said: Enough!

Every ideologue will say something on the order of: well, the plan, theory, program didn't work because it wasn't fully implemented, wasn't 100% pure in the rollout, wasn't properly administered, wasn't . . . whatever.

No, stop!

What McConnell and his gang never consider is the impact these ideological-driven ideas have on real people, ordinary Americans. Why? Because they don't care about ordinary Americans. This is all about their rich friends and donors who have made it perfectly clear they just don't care about anything but their own comfort, power and bottom line. If democracy has to go? No biggie, as long as the global markets are up and running and they get to call the shots.

This is why the rebranding of the Republican Party as the party of the working class is such a cruel joke. The working class will get chewed up and spit out. McConnell and his donors won't bat an eye because everything will be working splendidly.

For them. It's always for them.

If the Biden Administration has to go it alone? So be it. McConnell can't say he and his members weren't invited to contribute. Joe Biden has already said doing nothing is not an option. So negotiations will now be made with moderate to conservative members of the Democratic Party.

McConnell has voiced his position--no cooperation. The game's in play and Dems have the ball and field to themselves.

[Grins]

39. "McConnell's trying to implode the party to purge it of Trump." FAIL!

McConnell’s trying to implode the party to purge it of Trump.

Then he will fail.

Look at who the GQP is today. A party that believes Covid is a hoax, massively refuse the vaccines they thank the last guy for delivering, primaries ANYONE who strays from the message of authoritarianism, HATES (exception: Palin) every nominee they once strongly supported for high office, etc., etc. The list of delusions and contradictions goes on and on.

The nation need to get it through their heads- the GQP is not just reactionary - it’s a full blown cult!!

A cult that rejects science, history - Christianity! - and democracy.

[Hamlette]

40. But it is the same thing he said/did with Obama. Announcing in advance no GOP support.

And it is basically what the GOP did to Clinton. The big wigs met before he was sworn in and started to plot his impeachment.

It is the party of Goldwater now. in 1964 you still had people like Rockefeller in the party. In fact, Goldwater is too sane for this base. Have you talked to any Trumpers? They are beyond reason.

As much as I hate him, McConnell has been more sane on the Trumpism than most of the other republicans. Like many Republicans, he spoke out agains the insurrection right after it happened, but he has not jumped back on the bandwagon like the others. He has kept quiet. Remember his wife resigned from the Trump cabinet. I think the two of them thought Trump was done and are as stunned as the rest of us that he has so much support. So he is keeping quiet about Trump and running the Senate has he always has: refuse to cooperate with Democrats.

[dlk]

42. Hubris...

McConnell has been getting away with so much for so long, he believes it will continue.

[Mr.Bill]

43. Because republicans,

after they vote no on it, will go home nad brag about all the wonderful things it does as if they had voted for it. And if you poll republicans 70% of them will say their congresspeople not only voted for it, they wrote the bill.

[H2O Man]

47. Recommended.

Very interesting, and a pleasure to read. Thank you for this.

I think one can debate if Mitch actually has values at this point in time. At a younger age -- when he was new in office in the 1980s -- he was viewed as a moderate republican. He actually stood for some things, even if one disagreed with him. And, he actually had a willingness to work with Democrats.

As time went on, the vast majority of the things he previously had stood for flaked away, like dry, dead skin after a severe sun-burn. By the Obama era, he stood for but one thing: saying no to anything and everything that President Obama stood for. In the dark age of Trump, his primary goal was clearly placing "conservative" judges on the federal bench, in order to erase the gains that had been made in previous decades. And, of course, he was interested in his family's making money.

At this point in time, I am convinced that Mitch lacks the capacity to mitigate the damage that the Trump cult is inflicting on both their party and the nation.

[Escurumbele]

49. I disagree that they truly believe the trickle-down crap, it has been debunked, and they know it

What they actually do believe in with all their hearts is GREED. They would not care if the USA would become a country like Venezuela where 90% of the population is struggling to even put food on the table, many eating from the garbage, as long as they benefit economically.

In Venezuela there are two social classes, the 1%, many of them are Chavistas who became filthy rich by robbing the country, by dealing with drugs, by taking other people's businesses, houses, most of them have never done honest work in their lives, and then there is the rest of the country, no electricity, no water, no jobs, no food, no social benefits. That is exactly the dream of the GOP, no wonder why the buffoon trump admires Maduro.

Anyone who has had a good education, and most of republicans have, can understand that trickle-down and all the economic fantasies republicans talk about is juts talk, they know it doesn't work. That they talk like they believe it? Sure they do, they have to appear to understand the opposite of reality, they know that assurance wins followers who do not care to find the details of their false rhetoric.

Nope, I don't think they believe 80% of what they say in public, they just understand that people are easily fooled. If they truly believe those things they would not have to push them with nationalistic and populistic rhetoric. They are just a bunch of con artists who now seem to be under the kompromat that buffoon trump, and the Russians, have on them. When I see republicans like Graham, McCarthy, et al, talk on TV, I can clearly see their fear.

[sprinkleeninow]

56. Yes, I am down with the word 'greed' that you used.

I myself believe it is in the root of their mindset, behavior and acts.

Another vice:

Avarice is extremely strong desire for money and possessions.

[librechik]

60. Yes indeed. Trickle down was always a swindle and everybody knew it.

All along fucking lying cruel greedy creeps.

[burrowowl]

65. Since Raygun greed became a virtue instead of a capital sin

[BobTheSubgenius]

51. And yet, there were extremists that worried Goldwater. Not communists, anarchists or leftist of any

Not communists, anarchists or leftist of any kind, but apparently decent Americans, wrapping extremist religious views in the disguise of the Stars and Stripes. Goldwater warned the nation about the religious right...and 16 years later, they were front and center in Reagan's win.

But that's not the major point here, and there's still one more point to the side of the main issue I want to touch on. This is anecdotal, but a kind of anecdote that one can lean on with some weight, and I know I've said it before, but still...

My sister was very bright, very hard-working and had a Master's from Oxford (all paid by scholarship and bursary), her thesis being the North Atlantic Triangle - the economic interdependence of Great Britain, Canada and the United States. She was a policy advisor to our government, so I think it's safe to say she had some idea of what she was talking about.

She answered my question about any knowledge or experience she had with "trickle-down" or supply side economics. She said that, in all her years of schooling, and 3 years of writing papers for a think tank, she had NEVER heard trickle-down mentioned as a viable or even important economic theory. She later moved away from "hard" economics and into communications treaty negotiation. She died a few years ago, so an important viewpoint and fount of knowledge is gone along with one of the last components of my immediate family. A terrible loss.

Anyway.

So...those two aside, I CERTAINLY find the idea of Mitch McC pulling down the Temple of Greed and Bad Governance intriguing, to say the very, very least.

However, despite the OP's exposition, I find myself unable to pin down, even for just myself, any reasoning behind much of the mysterious behaviour of turtles in power. I'm afraid I don't agree whole-heartedly with the idea that McC could have conducted a successful purge during either of the impeachment hearings, if that was his goal.

To have tried, in the form of instructing the troops how to vote was by NO means a guaranteed route. If the Ramshackle House of Orange's popularity carried enough "No" votes to win the day, McC might as well have started packing at the moment the gavel fell.

Perhaps smashing the party to bits and being the only one left with the clout and acumen to put it back together would work. He must realize that it would cost them at least one cycle, but he seems capable of the long game, despite how he seems to want what he wants instantly. That's probably just what he expects. Whether it's thought through, or just a course drift over long experience, you cannot expect anyone to abandon a strategy or MO that has worked in the past, and seems likely to work in the present and future.

Is all of it a spiteful move on the part of an old man who feels the march of time and, bitter about never achieving total victory, is taking his ball and going home?

I really am at a loss to explain reptilian behaviour, except in the most obvious circumstances. Even then, it's often not explicable when set against a reasonable and rational framework.

[wiggs]

53. Doubtful he believes that trickle down benefits most people. I'm sure he does believe it benefits

donors to the GOP, its candidates, and the RNC. I'm sure he and other 1%rs believe that American strength and power resides in personal and corporate wealth and any means justifies the end objectives of keeping it that way.

He's not stupid...he knows the GOP has access to almost unlimited money and institutional power that can help it stay in the game, even win in some arenas. He knows how foreign money and influence can help the GOP, obviously.

This is a global battle and McConnell is in the middle of it with a game plan.

[peppertree]

61. As he did in 2016, he thinks that the fix is in - i.e. that some Repug will be "installed" in a coup

Obviously, there's a sitting president now that's in his honeymoon period (and a successful one at that) rather than one at the end of his second term.

So it's not a question of tipping the election to a Repug on a technicality, as they did in '16.

He must believe a coup is in the works, and that it counts with the needed support from powers-that-be to make it happen.

[Beastly Boy]

62. It IS a stretch. A logically flawed stretch.

The relationship between GOP and Trump is the reverse of what you think it is. At this point, Trump doesn't need GOP. GOP needs Trump. By imploding the party, McConnell will not rid it of Trump, he will rid the party of itself, and Trump will remain with his base intact.

So unless McConnel is desperate to get the GOP establishment out of Trump's way, I don't see what's in it for him.

[Dan]

67. Maybe Mitch realizes now, because of Trump

the only way to save the GOP in the long term, is to destroy it in the short term in it's present embodiment.

[uponit7771]

68. "..He thinks he's going to win..." or he ***KNOWS*** he's going to cheat better this time

[lastlib]

71. I have NEVER once seen a rich person use his tax cuts.....

to build a modern public airport or a new levee around New Orleans, or to rebuild an interstate-highway bridge. These are things that only government can do, but ONLY if it has the revenue to do them.

[Zambero]

73. Goldwater eventually moved toward the center as his party moved right

Ironic that the father of modern-day conservatism went on to champion gay rights, church-state separation as mandated by the 1st amendment, and questioned runaway military spending. These days, I don't detect any GOP conservatives following in his footsteps.

[andym]

74. Disagree: GOP will be fine, it's the USA that will be disrupted

GOP has a strong geographical based group of voters who are prioritized in the American system, so really McConnell can't do much harm to his party, no matter what policy he pursues. More seriously they have a propaganda network in place stronger than "Yellow journalism" of the late 19th century and a cult leader in place as well. Those two factors will keep them united and cause a lot of trouble for USA, as they minimally will block everything the Democrats are trying to do, and maximally create a country and laws where Republicans as a minority party can retain power. The United States will suffer as progress toward democracy that has been occuring in fits and starts since its founding will be reversed.

Does McConnell care about his policies-- seemingly so, especially the judiciary. Did he face any consequences for creating ad hoc rules to create a GOP dominated Supreme Court? No.

One thing you miss is that McConnell cares about power as one of his "principles", and he uses it to the maximum of his abilities. Telegraphing that he will not cooperate was a signal to other Republicans not to cooperate, since in the end the GOP will just take credit for any good that results if the policies pass, while at the same time badger Democrats about spending. How can they do that you may ask? Lie.

Also historically from for the next 27 years from 1964 to 1991, Democrats only won two Presidential elections in 1964 itself and in 1976. the GOP won 5 in that period, including Reagan who popularized Goldwater's point of view.

[bucolic_frolic]

75. Because it's not a mistake. Thom Hartmann is way off on this.

Mitch persists because Mitch knows this is as close as they will ever come to total power and they are still only one midterm and one presidential election away from their goal. Say what you will about them, they are true believers who will never surrender voluntarily.

[calimary]

76. So how long do we have to wait until he does?

[dansolo]

77. I disagree. He is not a true believer

Republicans oppose anything that is meant to benefit people in general, or specific group in particular. All of these economic theories are just fig leafs to provide justification for their actions.