Karen Erickson: 'Old Crow' McConnell paved the way for Trump's return

As of Monday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was celebrating political success. In a message posted on Platform X, he praised the news that Hungary had agreed to join Sweden as a member of NATO.

“Strengthening NATO means strengthening American national security and the collective security of the West,” McConnell wrote, noting that Sweden would be a capable and committed member.

He carried all but two of his party colleagues in a vote on Sweden and Finland's NATO membership in the US Senate in August 2022 (Senator Josh Hawley voted “no” and Senator Rand Paul chose to vote “present”). At that time he was still in line with the party. Now it is not.

Wednesday came Announcing that he will leave his position of power in Congress after the presidential elections in the fall. He will not seek another term as Senate Republican leader starting in January 2025.

-One of the most underrated talents in life is understanding when it's time to move on to the next chapter in life, the Minority Leader said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday.

It was a not-so-subtle jab at political rival Joe Biden, 82 in November, and potential Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, 78 in June.

McConnell has been suffering from health problems since he fell and suffered a concussion in Washington in March a year ago. He went out and stiffed in two games last summer. But he has more reasons to step down.

He simply can He will not lead the work of Republicans in Congress, if Trump returns as president. They do not have a working relationship. Trump doesn't just ignore McConnell and call him an “old crow.” He also attacked McConnell's wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, nicknamed “Coco Chao.” According to NBC, they did just that They haven't spoken to each other in three years.

The final break came after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, when Mitch McConnell ruled that the crowd had been fed lies and incitement by the president and other powerful figures.

In Trump's impeachment trial, McConnell said the former president bore moral and practical responsibility for the attack on Congress. However, he chose to propose, because Trump had already left the White House. He may have thought that the Trump era in American politics was over. Instead, it paved the way for Trump's political comeback — of evasions, super cabbage theories, and finally also lies about what happened in the United States during and after the 2020 presidential election.

Birth of Mitch McConnell The southernmost Alabama native, who later became a Kentucky politician, was portrayed as a power player without close friends or strong values. During the Obama years, he chose to block most proposals from the White House, to the benefit of his party.

But he can also be described as a classic Reagan Republican, who laid the groundwork for Trump's success in 2024. Among Republican voters today, there is a widespread longing for a return to the Trump era — but it has little to do with democracy. Loud rhetoric is concrete policy.

McConnell is portrayed as a power player without close friends or strong values.

Under McConnell's leadership, Republicans in Congress were able to pass tax cuts and appoint a long line of conservative judges. Political opponents will never forgive how McConnell blocked Merrick Garland's appointment to the Supreme Court during Democrat Barack Obama's final term in the White House — and then pushed through the appointment of staunchly conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett in the fall of 2020.

McConnell understood what All skilled parliamentarians around the world understand: no one escapes mathematics. In the end, it was the numbers that made it impossible for him to survive.

He has failed to persuade his party comrades to participate in the latest support packages for Ukraine. He appears as a cosmopolitan in a party increasingly dominated by nationalism and isolationism.

Strategist and power player McConnell ends up in the same camp as fellow party members Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney and Nikki Haley. It is not possible to counterbalance Trump. In the Republican Party, it is all or nothing, and for Trump's critics there will be nothing, in the end.