Mitch McConnell: How to win without doing anything
By Michael Shannon
The best summary of the 2018 midterm elections came from National Review, that hotbed of Never Trumpism. David French wrote, “Republicans solidified their theoretical advantages in the [Senate].”
“Theoretical” being the operative word. With Curator of the Senate Mitch McConnell in charge, any conservative changes in the status quo were always only “theoretical.” That’s why the big winner of this election was McConnell.
As this is written, the left has picked up 29 House seats and lost three seats in the Senate. That’s not a “blue wave.” It’s more like the splash on your shoes after a lobbyist’s SUV drives by during a D.C. rain storm while you wait for a bus.
In Clinton’s first midterm, he lost 54 House seats and eight Senate seats, and that was before he went all Harvey Weinstein on the help.
Nobel Prize-winning Obama, beloved by all, lost 63 House seats and six Senate seats in 2010. As Ed Rogers pointed out, the left’s victory didn’t even exploit the alleged national loathing for Trump.
“Democrats have underperformed in comparison with the historical markers and general expectations of a midterm cycle,” Rogers said. “The president’s party loses 37 seats in the House on average in midterm elections when his approval is below 50 percent — but Democrats aren’t projected to pick up nearly that many seats.”
Some of these numbers could change by the time you read this, because Democrats have dispatched vote-finding teams for the undecided races. These grave robbers and dumpster divers somehow manage to unearth previously hidden leftist votes in much the same way the French find truffles.
Mitch McConnell, Architect of Inertia, wins because even the most rabid members of the base won’t expect him to pass conservative legislation when the House is held by Antifa.
Had Republicans held the House, the additional three new GOP senators would have been an unmitigated disaster for McConnell. The pressure to finally pass legislation conservatives have been promised during the campaign, but somehow gets lost on the trip back to D.C., would have been overwhelming.
A relieved McConnell will spend the next two years cheerfully functioning as the Human Resources office for the White House judicial nomination team. After each confirmation, Mitch will claim the approved judge is a victory for Senate conservatives.
The truth is that every judge is a victory for the man McConnell secretly despises: Donald Trump. His victory in 2016 upset all the curator’s careful plans. With Hillary in the White House, Mitch could be his natural, passive-aggressive self. Trump ended the “if we only controlled the White House” excuse Senate country club conservatives used to justify their legislative coma.
Even after Trump made the McConnell family a two-income household again — his wife is Secretary of Transportation — Mitch showed his gratitude by refusing to support Trump’s budget, Trump’s wall and Trump’s effort to shrink the federal government. McConnell is responsible for 90 percent of the failure to pass Trump’s legislative agenda.
Now McConnell is mumbling about working with Democrats. This means he’s ready to reopen the Pork Palace under the guise of “bipartisanship,” because the only activity the two tribes in Incumbentstan can agree upon is spending money.
McConnell will enjoy the extra three-vote pad on judicial confirmation votes, even though he did nothing to produce the unprecedented Senate victories.
He avoided the immigration issue. He didn’t force Democrats to cast votes that would not play well at home. McConnell did almost nothing aside from his HR duties.
The president, on the other hand, was a campaigning machine. As Laura Hollis pointed out, “[Trump] was instrumental in the GOP victories in Florida, Indiana, Texas, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, and North Dakota.”
Trump won running his issues and not those of the housebroken conservatives hiding in the Swamp. Frank Cannon and Paul Dupont summed it up nicely: “The GOP [McConnell and the ‘leadership’] cannot afford to settle for a ‘truce’ strategy on social issues, surrendering to Democrats the power to define the cultural narrative. This repeatedly has proven to be electoral suicide. If Republicans are to capitalize on the Democrats’ growing weakness, they must campaign unapologetically as conservatives, as President Trump did in 2016, or else resign themselves to eventual defeat.”
Ed Rogers has sage advice for the curator: “Voters had a chance to repudiate Trump and they did not. Much of the commentariat has said this year’s elections are about who we are as a country and what America is all about. Well, a lot of America seems to be about supporting Trump.”
If McConnell, who has a lower approval rating in Kentucky than Trump, can’t grasp that fact, he needs to get out of the way.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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