I had the misfortune of hearing a blurb about McConnell yesterday on NPR. He almost wept proclaiming his unsurpassed love and respect for the Senate. Yet he described as his “greatest act” the holding up of Obama’s opportunity to appoint Garland. And NPR included his subsequent chortling acknowledgement that he would fill a vacancy late in Trump’s term (as he did).
What do you make of the mindset of an individual who can express such thoughts? Does he “love and respect” an institution that allows him to wield whatever power he might have, irrespective of any past expectations or consistency? Or does he love and respect the Senate because it is structured so as to give disproportionate influence to the minority sharing his particular views?
I can imagine being in a situation where I took advantage or rules to accomplish my person desires. But in my mind, I’d know I was doing nothing other than acting as an inconsiderate bully. I sure wouldn’t weepily proclaim my unsurpassed love for the flawed institution that allowed my selfish actions.
He will definitely go down in history as one of the most powerful - and effective - Senators ever. I wonder how many other similarly powerful Senators have so clearly appealed to such a minority, showing such disregard for the populace as a whole.
He loves and respects the wielding of personal power, and the ability he had to screw the other “team”. He sees politics as a competitive sport to obtain and keep power, and has not a care in the world for what is best for other human beings. If he has power, and others do not, that is the point.
Power is not a means; it is an end . One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”. - Orwell
There’s sane and reasonable reasons to do a thing, and nonsense/made up reasons to do that same thing.
States rights isn’t unreasonable. If the alternative is that you energize the Fundies, they spend 40 years taking over the party, and put Trump in the White House to piss on the rest of us, then there’s something to be said for States Rights. And there are non-religious, moral rationales for being opposed to abortion. It doesn’t clearly align with Christian religious theory, whether that forms a majority of the basis for the motivation among most.
Blocking abortion because God commanded it, and that ban should be national - even when the great majority of states would be against it - that would be unreasonable and unconstitutional. There’s no reason to ban something that only a minority believes should be banned - when states rights offers a much narrower boundary for the bank. And basing anything on God’s commands would violate the 1st Amendment.
While, nominally, there’s an outcome in the same territory under both trails of thought, there’s a fairly large difference in the hows and whys, that is far more significant.
It was never about States’ Rights, going back to the Civil War. They want an outcome and manufacture a reason. This goes back to the Civil War. Originalism is the same bullshit. They don’t really believe in originalism, it’s just a bad faith argument to get what they want.
Looking at the OP, I cannot help but comment that there is a difference between a fifty-year-old person giving away something valuable and an eighty-two-year-old person doing the same thing. One is being generous and gracious. The other is just beating the grim reaper to the punch.
They’ve re-written reality to support their claim that the Founders intended to enshrine God’s Law as ascendant over everyone and everything in the USA.
Of course the key to wielding power is to declare yourself the arbiter of what God’s Law actually is—but first and foremost, you claim that the USA was founded on the principle that Church rules State.
They can’t be talked out of this false belief. They really can’t.
I don’t think McConnell himself holds that belief, by the way. But if paying it lip service gave him more power, he was willing.
The New York Daily News has a fine opinion piece on McConnell’s legacy. My favorite quote is the last two lines of the editorial:
Mitch McConnell will be remembered as a savvy tactician who, by skillfully manipulating the rules of the Senate, got the better of Democrats in many partisan battles. He will also be remembered as a man who, though claiming to put principle above all else, proved he had almost none.
Can we consider this retribution for what happened to Robert Bork and now move on and get back to the Senate being a practical rubber stamp for judicial appointments?
That’s a bullshit comparison. Bork didn’t get confirmed but another Republican nominee did. Tell me how that’s the same as putting the brakes on a Democratic nominee until a Republican is elected president so that a Republican nominee can be confirmed.
Yes, after the Bork nomination was withdrawn, Kennedy sailed through with a 97-0 vote. Reagan also appointed Scalia.
The key thing that sunk Bork’s nomination was the opposition of Howard Heflin of Alabama. Heflin made it clear that he had no problem approving of a conservative, but he didn’t want an extremist. In other words, he wanted a judge who would respect precedent and like most southerners Heflin didn’t want to revist Brown v Board of Education, a decision that Bork had attacked.
Twenty-first century conservatives never forgave the Democrats for their support of Brown vs Board of Ed. That’s what the rejection of Bork was about. Nor did conservatives forgive the Democrats for confronting Bork with his own views: how dare they! Republican Arlen Specter joined with the Democrats to reject Bork. Conservative jurist Philip Kurland, founder and editor of the Supreme Court Review, testified that while he shared much of Bork’s legal philosophy, Bork’s contempt for precedent made him unsuitable for the highest court in the land.
To use a gaming analogy, he loves the game of Halo, because he found an exploit which gave him unlimited sniper ammo, so he could camp at a spawn point and repeatedly gank anyone as soon as they respawned.
Looks like we’re down to two Johns in the race for Republican leader – Thune and Cornyn are in, but Senator John Barrasso announced he’ll pass and instead seek the whip position. Trump is also apparently pushing Sen. Steve Daines to make a run.
