Biden spent his entire campaign talking about restoring bipartisanship to our process. Because bipartisanship is an inherently political word, everybody keeps looking at it politically.
But that’s not what Biden is necessarily talking about. If you listen to him speak, he keeps talking about bringing all Americans together to solve problems. And with Biden already halfway to his 100 million shots in the first 100 days on his 25th day in office, if he can get the Covid relief bill passed, people are going to start to feel pretty damn together.
But in this case, I am talking about bipartisanship in a political sense, because Biden will need it. For while he can get Covid relief, and possibly infrastructure through through reconciliation, he is still going to need GOP support for other programs.
But the face of bipartisanship may have just changed, at least in the Senate. And it changed as a direct result of the second Trump impeachment trial. Now only is the GOP writ large in an open state of civil war, so is the GOP Senate.
Look what happened yesterday. Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump on a technicality, basically saying that you can’t convict Trump of murder because the search warrant was misdated, and then talking to the Senate floor to convict Trump, and to say that if he had his way, Trump would have gotten the death penalty. And then Lindsey Graham turns right around and says that he will go visit His Lowness in Florida next weekend, to plot the GOP’s way forward going into 2022, with Trump at the helm of the party. The battle lines are already being drawn in the Senate. But McConnell holds the key, since he’s the Senate Minority Leader, it’s still his caucus.
As I wrote yesterday, McConnell’s anti Trumper tantrum on the floor of the Senate was clearly a clarion call to deep pocket donors, and corporate America, that the GOP, at least the national GOP was ready to slam the door on Trump’s fingers, and leave him in the closet forevermore. Nice pitch, but how do you convince them of your probity when a senior member of your caucus makes it public that he’s going to Florida to convince with the outcast? Corporate money won’t come back if there’s even a chance that Trump will be a major player.
So, how do you deal with that, especially if you’re the head honcho of the party in the Senate? That one is easy. You marginalize Trump, his influence, and the influence of his supporters in your caucus. Easy-peasy. You get popular shit done without them, or even better against their strong opposition. You show that you can govern.
Look, you already have 7 GOP Senators who voted to convict Trump. Two are retiring, four more were just reelected and are safe for 6 years. That’s 7, add in McConnell, have him convince Thune to join him, and you only need one more to break a filibuster. Let the Democrats ram through the Covid bill with reconciliation, with as many GOP Senators who want to vote for it on the final floor vote. It gives McConnell a shot for 2022, about autocratic Democratic rule.
But how about infrastructure? What GOP Senator wouldn’t like the idea of going home to their state to brag about how much money they just voted to repair roads and bridges, high speed internet access, and improved airports? Negotiate in good faith, and go big. Fuck it, the GOP has already proven that they don’t really give a shit about the deficit, and Trump’s voters showed that the actual GOP base doesn’t care anymore either, especially where free goodies are concerned. Win-win.
This is a purely long range, political mental exercise for McConnell, and he has spent his entire career thinking long range. Maybe that’s an influence from his wife, since the Chinese are world famous for their long term approach to political thinking. But McConnell has already made his break with Trump, and now he has to make good on it in order to survive politically.
And it isn’t really that hard of a decision for McConnell to make. Poll after poll has shown that pretty much all Americans are sick to death of the endless gridlock in Washington, they want government to work again. If McConnell can get the Senate to work, he can at least get corporate money for anti Trump Senate candidates, hopefully woo home some of the disaffected GOP voters who fled the party of Trump, and maybe even get them motivated enough to come out in primaries to help to oust some of the Trump acolyte incumbents.
Hey, I am making no predictions here. I learned long ago that nobody really knows that goes on in the Machiavellian mind of Mitch McConnell except Mitch McConnell. But McConnell is a purely political creature who always plays with the long game in mind. But in his open, virulent denunciation of Trump, McConnell has made his move. And now he has to deliver.
Twelve years ago, McConnell made a hard, base political decision. His decision was to try to make Barack Obama a one term President by opposing everything he tried to do. And while it didn’t work as far as making Obama a one term President, it did work in making Obama and his presidency so much weaker than it should have been. And if he wants to get the rump Trump part of the party by the old short-and-curlies, the way to do that is to make them look as weak and ineffective as possible, show that the party can govern without them. Don’t touch that dial.
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Great article. I think you might be on to something and something huge. We will actually get two bites at the reconciliation apple this year btw. Maybe there is acid in my eye drops (eyesight is getting better) but I think there’s a chance we might not need it for Covid relief. There is an awful lot in there that is awfully popular beyond those extra fourteen hundred bucks for so many regular folks. Of course, McConnell might make us use it just to limit our ability to do so on something else. The one thing that bums me is that even those GOP Senators that swung our way on impeachment will revert to being “good” little conservatives when Voting Rights Legislation comes up. We’ll see then how much hardball Schumer is willing to play.
I don’t buy it. McConnell will just obstruct everything as usual and know that the Schmuck Todds of the media will bothsides the story about Republikkklan obstruction.
“Look, you already have 7 GOP Senators who voted to convict Trump. Two are retiring, four more were just reelected and are safe for 6 years. That’s 7, add in McConnell, have him convince Thune to join him, and you only need one more to break a filibuster.”
Or, better yet, McConnell puts the screws to “his” caucus and forbids any filibusters from emanating from the GOP side of the aisle. And if any GOPer defies McConnell and attempts to filibuster, then McConnell takes him into a closet until only one comes out unbloodied (proverbially or literally). Just imagine McConnell “reminding” the wayward soul that his funding from whatever GOP Senate reelection group there is won’t be forthcoming.