I would bet a fair amount of money that Mitch McConnell wants to see Biden win the White House.
With his own position assured as leader of the intractable opposition, I bet he’s more than happy to gloat over the successes of the past four years (binders full of judges) while settling back down to his familiar role as the most powerful person in politics. Wouldn’t you rather hamstring a no-drama type than see where a briefly-useful renegade is going to lurch next?
The good news is that even such a cynical betrayal might be enough to send Trump packing. As with Nixon, the end of Senate support will mark the end of the viability of the presidency.
The bad news is that McConnell will remain as the American Deng Xiaoping, charting the country’s course even as he assiduously avoids the “top” job. (Seven terms in the Senate is far more time than any president ever gets in the limelight, after all.)
If we don’t want to find ourselves in an America with Kentuckian characteristics [as defined by McConnell, that is], it’s essential to come out hard and fast making clear that McConnell is the one standing in the way of the progress everyone wants.
And the place to start is with economic stimulus. Nearly half the country voted for the economy over the pandemic (as if such a thing were possible!), and everyone who’s not worried about a potential wealth tax wants a stimulus.
If the flatlining patient in 2008 was the economy in general, which is to say the banks, in 2020, it’s the American people. So the Democrats need to present a united front, immediately, in proposing legislation that would unambiguously benefit the average Kentuckian. And if it’s blocked, as McConnell determined that everything should be during the Obama years, then, instead of taking the easy way out with executive action, it’s essential to keep the heat on the person — and party — responsible.
It’ll be slow and ugly, but the opportunity in divided government is to further expose the lies. And I hope we can agree that Dear Leader McConnell shouldn’t be the architect of the third decade of this century, too.
Colin Steele 