“I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them,” intoned Sen. Mitch McConnell on Wednesday as he announced he would be stepping down as Senate Republican leader. “That said, I believe more strongly than ever that America’s global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed.”
McConnell appeared in his surprise announcement to be contemplating his legacy, saying he had reached a moment “when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe.”
But it’s hard to believe that the longtime Kentucky lawmaker believed what he was saying.
It’s hard to believe that the longtime Kentucky lawmaker believed what he was saying.
McConnell’s announcement came just days after we learned that he is reportedly poised to join his fellow Republicans in bending the knee to Donald Trump. McConnell has few illusions about what a second Trump presidency would mean: our allies abandoned, our enemies appeased. In Trump 2.0, Reagan’s shining city on a hill will likely be remembered as America’s great broken promise.
McConnell’s office declined an NBC News offer to comment on the reporting.
None of this was inevitable, and all of it was avoidable. But at every inflection point, McConnell has made the same decision. And he seems to be about to make it again, even though he knows that it means the abandonment of so many of the “ideals” he claims to believe in so strongly.
Just three years ago, McConnell described Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s actions, he said, were “disgraceful” and a “dereliction of duty.”
“Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police,” he declared from the Senate floor (after voting that Trump was “not guilty” on the impeachment charge of incitement of insurrection). “They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the speaker of the House. They built a gallows and…
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