Could it be that the vaunted Grim Reaper is actually a softie – or (gasp) maybe even a liberal – at heart?
That’s a question being posed by the increasingly absurd MAGA community about Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, who has morphed from obstructionist champion of the world to a somewhat responsible lawmaker willing to play ball with a Democratic administration on certain initiatives, albeit in fits and starts.
The new, improved McConnell was on display just before Christmas when he got behind the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that will permit the federal government to continue operating through the end of the fiscal year. He did so in the face of defiance of the Attila the Hun faction within the Senate GOP caucus and, more particularly, House Republicans, who wanted to leave their grimy fingerprints on the spending package when they assume their tenuous control of the lower chamber beginning next month.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, who is desperately trying to salvage his candidacy for Speaker of the House, has threatened to kill any bill that McConnell, or any other Senate Republican who supported the omnibus sends his way if or when he snags the gavel.
“When I’m Speaker, their bills will be dead on arrival in the House if this nearly $2T monstrosity is allowed to move forward over our objections and the will of the American people,” McCarthy said on Twitter.
And there were, well, other voices.
“The Marxist Democrats must have something really big on Mitch McConnell in order to get him and some of his friendly “Republican” Senators to pass the horrendous “All Democrat, All the Way’’ OMINOUS bill,” former President Donald J. Trump, the poster child for improved mental health services, belched on his Truth Social website.
McConnell defended the vote, insisting Republicans achieved all of their goals.
“The bipartisan Republican bill before this body is imperfect but strong,” McConnell said during a floor speech. “It will make huge new investments in our armed forces while cutting non-defense, non-veterans baseline spending in real dollars…outpacing inflation. Meanwhile, non-defense, non-veterans spending will come in below the rate of inflation, for a real-dollar cut.”
The omnibus wasn’t the first time during the 117th Congress that the man called the Grim Reaper for his propensity to filibuster and kill legislation when his party is in the minority has exposed a sudden and unexpected willingness to consider going along with Democrats.
Over the past two years, McConnell has supported a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges, water systems and broadband even though 30 of his fellow Republicans out of 50 in the Senate voted against it. He further endorsed another measure initiated by President Biden, a Democrat, a $52 billion subsidy package to bolster domestic production of semiconductor chips, with 32 Republicans voicing their opposition.
Perhaps most surprisingly, McConnell supported a gun control measure signed by Biden that included, among other things, a provision that prohibits those convicted of misdemeanor-level domestic violence against someone with whom they have or had a dating relationship from obtaining a gun.
To be honest, that measure is weak tea considering what needs to be done to get gun violence in America under control. But the vote was considerably out of character for McConnell and drew opposition from 33 of his GOP colleagues.
“The legislation before us would make our communities and schools safer without laying one finger on the Second Amendment for law-abiding citizens,” McConnell said.
It’s also important to consider what McConnell didn’t do. Most of the Republican caucus opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, which essentially holds that those states that don’t recognize same-sex and interracial marriages must nonetheless recognize those unions performed in states where such rites are legal. McConnell voted against the bill which subsequently became law – a bit surprising since his own marriage is interracial. But he didn’t seek a filibuster to throw a monkey wrench into the works. He simply let it proceed.
And now, at a time when a lot of Republicans are growing tired of aiding Ukraine in its war with Russia, McConnell is doubling down.
“Providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans,” McConnell said. “That’s sort of how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”
Not every conservative or Republican sees it that way. Wrote Mollie Hemingway, editor of The Federalist, a right-wing on-line screed: “The comment about Republican priorities is so false as to be completely delusional. Among the many concerns Republican voters have with Washington, D.C., a failure to give even more money to Ukraine simply does not rank.”
McConnell’s pivot – or more accurately, a short step toward the middle — hasn’t been complete. He, for instance, opposed the nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
But the measures he endorsed aren’t simple bills to rename a post office or congratulate the Mets for winning 101 games this season. They revolve around substantive policy matters that give credit the Biden administration. It’s fair to say he’s adopted a considerably more cooperative approach with Biden than he ever did with former President Barak Obama during the period 2009-20017. And it hasn’t exactly drawn plaudits from the party’s nutjob sect.
McConnell drew opposition from Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, when he sought re-election last month as Senate Republican leader. The opposition didn’t prove very significant – Scott could only round up 10 votes – but there remains an undercurrent of discontent among the MAGA adherents who comprise a solid bloc within the party.
“Our party leadership turned on Republican voters, turned on the Republican base, turned on most Republican senators,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-WY, said on WABC-AM, New York. “It has happened before, but this is one too many times. For me, this is the final straw. As Republicans scratch their heads over their disappointing midterms, they ought to consider that voters don’t see much of a defining difference with Democrats.”
The question, obviously, is why has McConnell changed course, if he really has? He’s always been an internationalist, so his backing the Biden administration on Ukraine isn’t a surprise. But some of the other issues are puzzling given his history.
Shortly after his election in 2020, Biden told New York Times columnist Ton Freidman that he thought he could deal with McConnell. They served in the Senate together and were on friendly terms.
“I think there are trade-offs, that not all compromise is walking away from principle,” he said. “He knows me. I know him. I don’t ask him to embarrass himself to make a deal.”
Biden went so far as to consider nominating a very conservative lawyer to a federal judgeship in Kentucky as a “personal favor” to McConnell. That, surprisingly, didn’t occur only after that celebrated whackobird, Sen. Rand Paul, R-TedYass, unexpectedly objected.
So, they get along. That obviously wasn’t true in regard to McConnell’s relationship with Obama, which led him to try and kill just about every bill the Illinois Democrat dreamed up. McConnell would have filibustered a measure declaring the sky is blue if it drew Obama’s support.
It’s obvious McConnell despised Obama, considered him a dilettante unworthy of the nation’s highest position after four measly years in the Senate. He basically said so himself in his self-congratulatory book, The Long Game. He wrote:
“A lot of people ask me what President Obama is really like. I tell them all the same thing. He’s no different in private than in public. He’s like the kid in your class who exerts a hell of a lot of effort making sure everyone thinks he’s the smartest one in the room. He talks down to people, whether in a meeting among colleagues in the White House or addressing the nation.”
What’s more, McConnell asserted, Obama displayed “indifference” or, perhaps, “hostility” toward Congress.
“Knowing I could do little to change his perspective on things, my goal has been to stop him when I think he’s pushing ideas that are bad for the country.”
It warrants noting here that Obama is an African-American and that, perhaps, McConnell’s distaste emanated from that. While McConnell is far from the civil rights champion he claims to be – how far can you go on an anti-apartheid vote back in the 1980s? – he’s certainly no Strom Thurmond and hasn’t displayed any open contempt for folks of different races. And he’s pushing Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron to be the Commonwealth’s next governor.
Still, whatever the source of the animosity, the fact that it allowed him to guide his actions during the Obama administration establishes that he can be a jerk. And Uncle Joe should beware.
