McConnell is ending an era for himself, his party and the Senate

Mitch McConnell has admitted over the years that as a junior member of the Senate he longed to be the one reporters chased for information, jealously watching his senior colleagues being hounded by the media while he was ignored.

“The truth is, when I got here, I was just happy when someone remembered my name,” he said Wednesday as he announced his time as leader was coming to an end. He noted that President Ronald Reagan once incorrectly identified him as Mitch O’Donnell.

“Close enough, I thought,” he recalled.

Once Mr. McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, had amassed real power in the Senate as both majority and minority leader over a seventeen-year period and deftly used it to bend the Senate to his will, he held on. Often he refused to even acknowledge the existence of the press, as reporters asked questions and he strolled by like a sphinx.

One thing Mr. McConnell was always clear about, however, was that he saw the United States as the world’s essential power, embracing Reagan’s view that the nation’s role was to destroy the so-called “evil empire” of the then-Soviet -to fight against the Union. . He reiterated that position Thursday on his first day as leader of the lame duck.

“America is the pre-eminent superpower in the world – both economically and militarily. But our influence and prosperity are made possible by a network of partnerships,” Mr. McConnell said. “The strength of these alliances rests on the credibility of the promises we make to our friends.”

Still, a growing number of his fellow Republicans have a different view of America’s role in the world, and Mr. McConnell took that as his signal to step aside, though he will undoubtedly continue to push for military aid to Ukraine in his fight against what is now Russia.

Mr. McConnell’s clash with the rising isolationism in his party began in Cleveland, of all places, during the 2016 Republican National Convention, where Donald J. Trump was about to be officially named the party’s presidential nominee. Mr. Trump chose that opportunity to announce that he was not inclined to defend NATO allies unless they could better meet their financial obligations to the alliance.

For Mr. McConnell, a staunch supporter and defender of NATO, that was a naive blunder. He attributed it to a “rookie mistake” by a nominee who was not well versed in foreign policy and simply needed guidance from an experienced internationalist like himself.

But it turned out to be Mr. McConnell who made the mistake. In the years that followed, it became clear that Mr. Trump truly despised NATO and was more than willing to let it crumble. That belief has increasingly gained traction among right-wing Republicans and reflects how out of step Mr. McConnell had become with his own party’s mood.

Mr. McConnell initially viewed Mr. Trump as a curiosity, a politician who managed to offend people, denigrate Senate icon John McCain and others with his rallies and social media trolls.

When chaos ensued over immigration policy during Trump’s early days in 2017, Mr. McConnell was hardly alarmed — far from it. Instead, he said Senate Republicans were happy to discover that Mr. Trump was a true conservative who traditionally pursued right-of-center policies.

For Mr. McConnell, Mr. Trump was a useful tool, one that would allow him and White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II to fill the federal courts with vetted conservative judges that Mr. Trump could nominate, and Mr. McConnell would then move quickly through the Senate. They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations and installed 234 judges, including three Supreme Court justices.

Mr. McConnell had helped Mr. Trump immeasurably in his presidential bid by keeping open a seat on the Supreme Court. That gave evangelicals and other conservatives suspicious of Trump’s character a reason to rally behind him, assured that the next president would receive an immediate appointment to the court.

But Mr. McConnell ultimately found himself in the same place as many allied with Mr. Trump — the target of attacks. Mr. Trump went after Mr. McConnell for, among other things, his failure to overturn the Affordable Care Act and for working with Democrats on spending legislation to keep the government funded.

Ultimately, they disagreed over Trump’s election denial and his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. But McConnell joined most other Republicans in pushing through Trump’s acquittal in his impeachment trial on charges of incitement to insurrection, which thwarted an attempt to ban him from holding future office. In a scathing speech afterward, saying Trump was guilty of an “outrageous dereliction of duty,” the Senate leader argued that the former president’s fate should be decided by the courts.

As the courts consider Mr. Trump’s role, he is back as Republican leader and Mr. McConnell is retreating to the sidelines, an odd man out in a party that is quickly coalescing around Mr. Trump .

“I think it’s very important that whoever our next Senate leader is shares the same priorities and goals as whoever the Republican president is,” said Senator Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas. “And whether it’s President Trump or any president, we want the Republican leader to be on the same page with them and share their priorities.”

It was startling Wednesday when McConnell, who in typical fashion reneged on his decision to step aside after diligently guarding against leaks, faced friendlier commentary from Democrats than from far-right Republicans fed up with his leadership.

That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, after he infuriated Democrats by denying President Barack Obama the chance to fill a Supreme Court vacancy during a presidential election year in 2016, only to turn around four years later and by jamming a very conservative Trump candidate. before the elections.

Although his time is running out, Mr. McConnell is far from done. He said he plans to remain leader through the November elections and will certainly use his position to pound the floor daily in support of Ukraine and other U.S. allies, even if some of his colleagues disagree. at sometime.

After that, he will have two more years left in his Senate term and will be free from the shackles of leadership. Perhaps then he might decide to answer some of those questions he once wished were directed at him, but which he has since kept on his lips to avoid.

“I will also finish the job the people of Kentucky hired me to do – albeit from a different seat in the chamber,” Mr. McConnell said. “I’m looking forward to that.”