Senate Majority Mitch McConnell’s sudden public about face, and likely betrayal of Glorious Bleater in his darkest hour of need made no sense to me from the moment e expressed his support for Trump’s 2nd impeachment. McConnell has been at least as slavish, if not more so, than any other GOP member of the Senate. But a seemingly random juxtaposition of reports tonight suddenly illuminated me as to what McConnell was planning, and it’s pure, Machiavellian McConnell.
Trump will be history next Wednesday, nothing can change that. And begrudgingly, even the most loyal Trump acolytes in the GOP have been forced to accept it. And that fact has already unleashed a feeding frenzy in the GOP for potential 2024 hopefuls. Everybody from Tom Cotton to Marco Rubio, from Ted Cruz to Mike Pompeo, to Nikki Haley, are all scrambling to set up exploratory committees to look into a possibility of a 2024 run.
But there is a dark cloud on that oh so shining, positive horizon. And that dark cloud is none other than one Donald John Trump. Even before the 2020 election was completed, Trump floated the possibility that if he lost, he may just sit back, make some money, marshal his forces, and run again in 2024. And if true, that has the chilling effect of freezing the 2024 GOP Presidential field. It is already common knowledge that the GOP is now the party of Trump, and nobody in the party would like the prospect of running against him in the 2024 primaries for the nomination.
Here’s where impeachment, and the Machiavellian fingers of Mitch McConnell come into play. McConnell is an undying party man, and Trump is not. Trump is an insult that the party unfortunately had to not only endure, but pretend to adore. McConnell has already made it clear that he will not expedite the process of impeachment, so that Trump would have the ultimate humiliation of being removed while in office. But McConnell made it perfectly clear that the path to convicting Trump after he left office is a distinct possibility.
If Trump is convicted by the Senate after he has already left office, then the result is nothing more than ceremonial at best. But if Trump is convicted, that would trigger a second, much more consequential vote, one to permanently bar Trump for running for federal office again. Do you see where I’m going here?
If the Senate votes to convict Trump, then no further GOP support would be needed. The 50 already seated Democratic votes, with Kamala Harris on deck to break the tie, would be enough to bar Trump from ever running from any federal office again. And in so doing, McConnell can clear the field for the first post Trump candidates to try to reclaim the party, without them having to run against Trump to do it!
I have written before that Mitch McConnell is a cold, cruel, vindictive son of a bitch, and one who doesn’t mind waiting to take his revenge. For four long years, he has had to play the part of the subservient acolyte to a political buffoon, and to appear to like it. But at the last moment, when Trump is at his lowest, McConnell can ensure that Trump can never again enslave his party. It all fits like a glove.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like to check out President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange . They comprise a pretty much daily report from the front of the 2016 GOP primaries, as well as the general election
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This makes a lot of sense. But isn’t there also a counter-plot? Because even as McConnell is plotting his revenge, the reason he’s doing that is because he was really and truly screwed by Trump, as a result of which McConnell is about to lose a lot of power. Not all GOP members are fed up with Trump. There is still a signoficant hard-core faction that wants Trump to stay in control of the party and does NOT want him convicted in the senate; the insurrection hasn’t changed them one iota; they are still hooked on the Trump base, and they need Trump and the base to protect them from McConnell. That’s how I interpret a statement by Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota today: he says he doesn’t know many “wimps” in the U.S. Senate who would follow McConnell when it comes to President Donald Trump’s impeachment. “Mitch McConnell has a lot of influence, I don’t know that he has a lot of power,” Cramer said during a Wednesday evening interview. “He has a lot of power over the schedule, obviously, and the process, but I don’t know many wimps in the United States Senate who are going to vote one way or another just because Mitch McConnell does.”
Before the Georgia vote, Mitch McConnell did have a lot of power. I think Cramer is signalling that he now has less than he used to. And I think that’s also why McConnell is in no hurry to say how he’d vote in the trial; he doesn’t yet know how the sides within the GOP are stacking up.
I mean, Jim Jordan still is not acknowledging that Biden won the election. And he’s far from the only one. (Of course Jordan’s not a senator.) This is the committed seditionist wing, and they still have a lot of power in the party. But how much power do they have in the senate? You’re absolutely right that the GOP is in the midst of a civil war.
If he can shiv Trump for destroying his party, that may well be enough for McConnell. All that Mitch accomplished is now in danger thanks to Trump’s antics and the former is no more above petty revenge than the latter.
Just happened to wonder, what if, after conviction,Trump goes to SCOTUS, and gets the conviction overturned? Or is that not a possibility? I don’t know, but any lawyers here, can you enlighten us?
Yeah, nope, that ain’t happening, Martin. SCOTUS would answer that challenge the way they have all of Trump’s others: eff off.
As McConnell said, if he can “purge” Trump from the republican party, he can regain control and power. That’s my thinking.
Sure, and if he can it will be better not only for him, but — just by coincidence — for the country and for the world. But the question I raise is, can he? Time will tell.
This article is spot on. We just need to have as short a trial as possible so that the Biden agenda can go to work on the problems the Trump administration left behind.
And once again, these cowardly, trashy, irresponsible, seditious MFers are counting on the Democratic Party to clean up this mess they created, too.
In calling himself The Grim Reaper, McConnell showed us exactly who he is. He doesn’t give a damn about Americans and their problems. All he cares about is the power that he had in the Senate as Majority Leader. Now, because he has lost that, he is doing everything he can to keep hold of the Republican caucus in the Senate. That will be the only power that he will have from now on. That is, until Kentucky voters finally wake up and stop reelecting him. If they ever do.
All true, but if McConnell can be the Grim Reaper of the Trumpist-Seditionist wing of the GOP, that’s fine by me.
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.”
William Cowper
McConnell may be making a mistake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x-lvlZiIZw