McConnell is the second-most important political figure of our time
"Sen. Mitch McConnell helped push through the 2008 bailout of Wall Street banks that likely prevented a deeper economic downturn. He masterminded the Republicans’ strategy of full-on, relentless opposition to Barack Obama, diminishing the popularity of one of the most charismatic presidents in recent history. He smartly fixated on the judiciary, helping ensure that Republicans have a 6-3 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and hard-line conservatives on lower-level courts.
Despite his initial anger about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Kentucky senator refused to join Senate Democrats and even some Republicans in voting to convict Donald Trump of high crimes. That left the path open for Trump to once again run and be elected president.
McConnell, who announced on Thursday that he is retiring from the Senate after his term concludes in January 2027, was never elected or even a candidate for president. But his influence and power at times eclipsed the men who were in the Oval Office. I disagree with McConnell on most policy issues and don’t respect many of his decisions. But no one can deny that Mitch McConnell fundamentally changed American politics — mostly for the worse.
McConnell, who moved to Louisville as a teenager and served as judge-executive there, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, riding on the coattails of President Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory. Back then, few Republicans held prominent roles in Kentucky or throughout the South. As Kentucky (and the South) got more Republican, McConnell’s reelection races became easier. That allowed him to focus on rising up the ranks within the GOP hierarchy in D.C.
His Republican colleagues made him minority leader after the 2006 elections. At the time, it didn’t seem too important of a development. The party’s previous Senate leader, William Frist of Tennessee, had flirted with a presidential run, which his fellow Republicans did not appreciate. McConnell, with his wooden speaking style and lack of charisma, was fully aware he wouldn’t be a great national candidate and therefore would focus only on the Senate.
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McConnell worked in a bipartisan way on the Wall Street bailout. In 2009, even if he refused to cooperate with Obama, it seemed it wouldn’t matter. Democrats had won huge majorities in the House and the Senate and had a generational talent in the Oval Office.
But McConnell was also talented. He persuaded Senate Republicans to oppose Obama’s entire agenda and use whatever procedural tactics they could to slow the new president’s plans. McConnell’s core insight was cynical, but correct: Voters would credit Obama if lots of legislation passed quickly, but blame the president if there was gridlock, even if it was caused by Republicans. With the president’s approval rating sagging, Republicans won the House in 2010, blocking Obama from the transformative presidency he had imagined.
McConnell’s leadership style, from 2009 to when he stepped down last year as Republican leader in the Senate, was defined by one single factor: partisanship. He treated almost every conflict as a war between Team Red and Team Blue. So, in 2016, as majority leader, he blocked Obama from putting Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court, claiming such an important appointment should come after the presidential election later that year. But he then pushed hard for the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump pick, only weeks before the 2020 election.
McConnell seemed fully aware that Trump was breaking with core democratic values and norms, but still strongly opposed the Democrats’ first impeachment of Trump in 2020 and backed the president’s campaigns in 2020 and last year.
We now have a country where the two parties and its citizens are deeply polarized, and an autocratic figure is in the White House. Perhaps McConnell could not have prevented those two outcomes, but was instead a major figure in creating them. McConnell appears wary of what he has unleashed, recently voting against some of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees, who were confirmed anyway.
The story of why American democracy is in trouble starts with Trump, but the person second-most at fault is McConnell. He should not be celebrated upon his retirement.
That said, as a liberal, there are moments when I wonder whether Democrats would have been better off the past two decades if they had leaders as unapologetically partisan as McConnell. Obama wasted time in his presidency courting support of congressional Republicans that he didn’t need, as though a bill was inherently better if it was bipartisan. Biden often praised McConnell’s legislative skills; the Kentuckian rarely returned the favor. (Former speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has been partisan and effective in the mold of McConnell.)
McConnell acted as though getting conservative policies passed and Republican politicians elected were the only things that mattered. He might not be remembered fondly by history — but he will be remembered. Mitch McConnell mastered the Senate and thereby mastered American politics. I wish he had been less successful."
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