There are so many reasons to hate The Grim Reaper of the Senate, Moscow Mitch McConnell, that you’d need to be an octopus with hands to count them all. For starters, the allegedly sole reason for going into politics was to do the peoples work. And anointing yourself The Grim Reaper shows that you don’t give a shit about the people’s business.
Let’s be clear, 2021-2022 were not good years for Moscow Mitch. Especially 2022. McConnell, long thought of as as master tactician of
Senate rules and protocols, regularly got ran rings around by new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It looked like McConnell had lost his groove. And in 2021, that was almost certainly true. But McConnell is by no means senile or doddering.
To know Mitch McConnell you have to know that he is heart a total tactician. He is expert in the arcane rules of the Senate, as well as parliamentary procedures. And he has made his career on using them to his ultimate benefit.
The one thing that McConnell learned early in his career is that there is no such thing as a permanent Senate majority. Due to the layout of the map, and the Senate election schedule, the body is regularly likely to switch hands. And as a master tactician, McConnell’s job was to ensure that he retained as much power and influence as possible when the GOP was on the short end of the stick.In 2017 McConnell came under incredible pressure from Traitor Tot to nuke the filibuster himself, in order to get Trump’s agenda passed. But McConnell had his eye on the long game, he knew he’d be around long after His Lowness was gone, and he’d need that cudgel.
His nightmare scenario came sooner than he wanted, in 2020. Suddenly McConnell was faced with a 50-50 Senate, with Harris to break a tie. But McConnell also had an ace in his pocket, two renegade Democratic Senators, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both of whom had sworn fealty to the filibuster rule. And suddenly McConnell’s priorities changed, and his top priority was to ensure that neither Sinema or Manchin could be induced into changing their minds on the filibuster.
Suddenly Papa had a brand new bag. According to an article in The New York Times, McConnell got together with his wingman, Senate Minority Whip John Thune to plot a strategy. Neither one of them wanted to give Biden jack shit, but they had to whip the Democrats. If the Democrats pushed a bill that neither Sinema or Manchin was in favor or, they were safe in opposing it. If the Democrats pushed a bill that one or the other was in favor of, they had to be careful. And if the Democrats pushed a bill both strongly approved of, then they risked a nuke of the filibuster with strong resistance.
Which led to a truly unique session of legislative give-and-take. Thune and McConnell picked out whatever truly toxic shit they could from universally popular bills before sucking up and voting for them to pass. This didn’t always play well in the Senate GOP caucus, but McConnell and Thune knew what they were doing. Or so they thought.
The shining example of Schumer being totally aware of what they were doing, and playing them, came with The Chips Bill. McConnell swore to tank the Chips Bill if the Democrats went ahead with the reconciliation Inflation Reduction Act. Right on cue, Joe Manchin announced that he was walking away from the table on the IRA. The GOP voted for the Chips Bill, and the next day Manchin announced that he was on board for the IRA. McConnell was furious for having been so easily played.
But it only gets harder for McConnell and Thune in 2023. Because now the Democrats have an actual 51-49 advantage in the Senate, it would only take one Democratic defection, either Sinema or Manchin to bolt to nuke the filibuster permanently. But McConnell still has a card to play. With a slin GOP majority in the House, it would take some legislative magic to pass a Senate bill, so why nuke the filibuster?
For those of you who follow politics as deeply as I do, this was just another example of a functional Senate at work. But for those of you who don’t, it is a tutorial on how twisted and arcane the Senate is, and how difficult it is to get anything done in the congress. Here endeth the lesson.
