Mitch McConnell Endorses Trump
[guest post by Dana]
I’m just saying: if my husband endorsed a lunatic for the presidency after he had publicly humiliated me by making racist comments about me, he would find himself living in a house, a cold house, divided. And yet, this is what Mitch McConnell did today:
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday he will support Donald Trump for the presidency, a move that comes more than three years after they have last spoken and after the Kentucky Republican pointedly blamed Trump for the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in a statement. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.”
It is the ‘Party First’ mentality that has led us to this awful moment. We’ve watched elected officials and Republican leaders sell their souls in order to remain in the good graces of the man who controls the Republican Party. As it has always been, what matters is keeping Trump happy, despite him trying to illegally overturn a legitimate election and trash the Constitution. The Republican Party no longer bears any resemblance to that which most of us once knew. It has morphed into a gross sideshow with very few visible reminders of saner days.
But back to McConnell. He has already announced his end-of-the-year retirement and thus has nothing to lose, so why not, on behalf of his wife and the nation at large, stand against the corrupt individual that he blamed for the insurrection on Jan. 6. Instead of endorsing a grifter who sexually assaults women, be the bigger man and just say that, in good conscience, he cannot endorse him. Maybe “good conscience” is the problem, maybe pragmatism wins the day. I don’t know. But it would sure be a stellar parting gift to Americans at such a critical time in our democracy.
I say all of this because I believe wholeheartedly that: We can survive bad policy, we cannot survive a president who torches the Constitution.
—Dana
Hello.
Dana (8e902f) — 3/6/2024 @ 6:45 pmI completely agree, Dana. He’s in his 80s, and he is stepping down as leader. What is he risking if he took a stand?
norcal (679f0a) — 3/6/2024 @ 7:25 pmMitch is 82 and could be more mentally diminished than Biden.
Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 3/6/2024 @ 8:22 pmI’m still not completely sure what those couple of freeze-ups were about.
McConnell is a professional politician is a system with two employers. This is to be expected. I don’t fault him for accepting the inevitable. He had to do it, and he waited as long as he possibly could.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/6/2024 @ 10:10 pmWe can survive bad policy, we cannot survive a president who torches the Constitution.
We cannot survive a major war with either of these clowns at the helm.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/6/2024 @ 10:11 pmWe cannot survive a major war with either of these clowns at the helm.
Kevin M (8676e4) — 3/6/2024 @ 10:11 pm
With Biden, you’re really getting his advisors. With Trump, you’re getting someone who is likely to ignore his advisors.
If Trump was amenable to good advice, he wouldn’t be in the trouble he’s in.
norcal (555d57) — 3/6/2024 @ 10:19 pmThe way we do politics has painted a lot of these elected officials into a corner. It must be awful being Mitt Romney these days. In addition to the festering personality fetish and daily offerings of illiberalism that must be confronted, it has to be deflating to not be able to move a conservative agenda forward. The GOP languishes on Hunter, impeachment fantasy, and nit-picking an immigration plan that would have been branded a massive win not too many years ago. All while debt mounts unabated.
You appreciate those that fight for normal, but you also understand the Paul Ryans and Ben Sasses who choose to do something else rather than bend the knee and compliment the emperor’s missing atire. Still, endorsements are one thing, but how hard will some of these reluctant endorsers really work for Trump? I’m sure Trump’s people will try to compel an appearance here and there, but I don’t really see McConnell doing any more than he wants to. It’s one thing to try and lead a caucus neutered by populism and cultism; it’s another to step back and stay clear of the party’s impending implosion. For the next 8 months, Trump’s own words will be the strongest indictment against him.
Yes Joe Biden is a weak alternative. Few can picture him having the energy to be a war-time President or the strength to do what is necessary to secure the border and stop the fentanyl. If possible, his #2 inspires even less confidence. People don’t want to pay so much for food and housing….and don’t want to see any schools being commandeered to house illegal immigrants who defy an orderly system.
Only Biden and his brittle weakness makes this a race. Yet, the Democrat Party has jiu jitsued itself into this awkward position.
Still, for me this race comes down to NATO, UKraine, and respect for our political norms. Trump must lose.
I wish a magic moderate alterative to Biden would emerge but inertia and partisanship really caps out this hope. Moderation by definition forecloses finding an electric animating option….especially in the media environment that we’ve created. There’s no sleeping Ross Perot to awaken and peel off the partisans. If No Lables had Kryptonite, I think we’d see it by now.
Team Biden must make the choice compelling. They can’t simply rely on the awfulness of Trump. They must proactively address Biden’s weaknesses. First, he must use Executive action on the border, no matter how Trumpy that might make him feel. Second, he needs to use the Bully Pulpit to pressure the Fed to reduce interest rates to make housing more attractive. Third, he needs to invite someone like Haley to join his next administration. Sell people that he wants to be a unifier by substantively bringing in normal opposition voices. Biden must tack to the middle in unambiguous terms. Fourth, it will likely not happen, but he needs to dump Kamala by moving her into the cabinet and find a #2 that inspires more confidence. Finally, he needs to demonstrate something aggressive on fentanyl. There is likely no easy solution, but there might be more to gain in something risky than idly sitting by licking an ice cream cone.
The alternative is egregious…but fix the problem….
AJ_Liberty (77027d) — 3/7/2024 @ 2:34 amThe Republican Party has been very, very good to Mitch McConnell. And he has been very good to it. He’s not going to turn his back on it now because some orange loony with one foot in jail and the other in a mental institution has crashed it.
As for Elaine Chao, she’s a big girl and she can take care of herself. I suspect that it was something personal and not political. Like maybe she refused to facilitate some shady foreign deal for the Trump-Kusner crime family.
nk (750799) — 3/7/2024 @ 5:39 amHere’s a thought: Mitch McConnell may understand that his https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4366225-mcconnells-approval-rating-sinks-to-just-6-percent-monmouth-poll/ratings are so low that his “endorsement” may hurt Trump.
Jim Miller (c66f9a) — 3/7/2024 @ 6:33 amBut enough about Joe Biden…
Seriously though, ultimately politics is transactional.
I know many of us want to aspire to the idea that our political movement is resolutely founded in principles, but at the end of the day, politicians are not robots and has their own wants/desires in their political careers.
The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can navigate these sort of things.
Its why many believes politicians are like prostitutes… it’s just that politicians hides it better. Which makes prostitutes more honest than politicians. :’)
whembly (5f7596) — 3/7/2024 @ 7:50 amHitler and stalin signed a non aggression pact.
asset (eb630b) — 3/7/2024 @ 2:14 pmIt was one day! It was like a snow day. (then they had a real snow day and tried to have all New York City public school students use Zoom [because they had so many holidays that they couldn’t lose another because it cause the number of school days per year to fall under the minimum – not that the number of days makes any sense] and it didn’t work.)
It was because f bad weather. Floyd Bennett Field is in a flood zone.
It would be nice (and not too difficult) to get more people to use an more orderly system, but the whole idea of immigration law is, of course, is that they shouldn’t come at all. Now why can’t people say that?
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:14 pmThere’s Michael Bloomberg, but he tried running in 2020, and he’s nine months older than Biden.
There’s always Governor Moonbeam/Methuselah (born April 7, 1938, age 85 going on 86) but he’s not even rich.
There is this guy who won the caucus in American Samoa (total number of votes cast: 91) but who is he?
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:21 pmIt would be nice (and not too difficult) to get more people to use an more orderly system, but the whole idea of immigration law is, of course, is that they shouldn’t come at all. Now why can’t people say that?
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:14 pm
I disagree, Sammy. The whole idea of immigration law is that we choose how many and which people to admit to the country.
We can’t admit everybody who wants to come here, unless you want a population bigger than China and India. Are there not enough cars on the road already? We are at a point where it’s virtually impossible to get new infrastructure built. Look at the boondoggle that is the California High-Speed Rail.
The West has been settled. In fact, it was officially declared settled in 1890.
norcal (5bad9a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:22 pmnorcal (5bad9a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:22 pm
You only “choose” by subtraction You can’t make people come. You could, of course, make it easier for some types of people to come, but nobody is proposing that.
It would be easy. Say anyone (almost) who was hired at a salary of $60,000 (or whatever) a year or anyone with a college degree. But the objection made to that is that then their family members could later come (ignoring the fact they’d be disproportionately on the same level and also double counting)
You can do this slowly. And you can place obstacles – just not the kind that will cause people to risk their lives.
The United States actually is relatively underpopulated. And it’s got too few young people to sustain Social Security. And it promotes economic growth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/business/economy/immigrants-labor.html
This is the kind of thing all economists say but Republicans prefer believing in the crackpot theories of some defunct economist. The restrictionists are against all immigration think all immigration harms the people already here (although curiously, they are against rent control, which protects incumbents) and also claim that they want enforcement before allowing any more people to come regardless.
They think all immigration is bad, and all imports.
But that’s a problem not caused by immigration. Maybe making the problem worse will finally push things toward rationality.
Yes. And high levels of immigration continued till about 1915.
And the interior of America is losing population – and doctors and grocery stores and banks and everything else. You could divert some immigration there. But nobody’s interested in that kind of a compromise because
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:43 pmBecause they rely on theory.
Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 3/7/2024 @ 4:44 pmI’m actually not sure this is true. Which, given the type of person he would be likely to appoint as an advisor during a second term, is actually bad — I think. They will be more of the ”yes men” and sycophants he shouldn’t have listened to last time, but did.
Still, your overall point is well taken. If somehow, a good advisor does happen to slip through the cracks, Trump would probably reliably ignore that person.
Demosthenes (3b30b4) — 3/8/2024 @ 4:39 am