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McConnell’s Impeachment Ploy Was Not Statesmanship, But An Attack On The Base — And Republicans Must Remember It Well
the federalist ^ | February 15, 2021 | Christopher Bedford

Posted on 02/15/2021 5:49:57 AM PST by Kaslin

Friday's floor speech was no quick tantrum: It was the last stupid moments of the minority leader's plan to purge the GOP of Donald Trump.


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “got a load off his chest” with his speech closing out Friday’s second failed impeachment attempt against former President Donald Trump. “Unfortunately,” however, “he [also] put a load on the back of Republicans. That speech you will see in 2022 campaigns.”

Who’s responsible for that quote? It might surprise some it wasn’t Donald Trump Jr. or Rep. Matt Gaetz — it was Sen. Lindsey Graham, a moderate, hawkish Republican not up for re-election for six whole years.

“I would imagine if you’re a Republican running in Arizona or Georgia or New Hampshire, where we have a chance to take back the Senate, they may be playing Sen. McConnell’s speech and asking about it as a candidate,” Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And I imagine if you’re an incumbent Republican people will be asking if you’ll support Mitch McConnell in the future.”

McConnell isn’t a man used to public rebukes from the corporate wing of his party, but after the past month’s antics they are rightly deserved. Friday’s floor speech was no quick tantrum: It was the last stupid moments of the minority leader’s plan to purge the GOP of Donald Trump — a plan that began to unravel nearly immediately after its poorly conceived Jan. 12 rollout in the pages of The New York Times.

So what’s all behind this? After four years of yelling “MAGA!” while pushing his own classic, corporate Republican policies, McConnell had hoped to rid himself and his conference of the conservative populist nationalism the former president had championed and go back to the way things were. He wants a return to promising to tackle illegal immigration before winking at corporate America that nothing will change. He wants to raise money on fighting the abortion of our infants while comfortably lifting nary a finger.

He wants to shrug and change the subject when asked about men dominating women’s sports and using women’s bathrooms. He wants fewer taxes and more wars. Hell, he wants someone to blame for the Republican losses in the Georgia special election, and with them the loss of his seat at the head of the Senate.

Instead, his push to impeach ended with rebuke from his own conference. Angry and embarrassed, he blamed his own colleagues as well as the former president, performing a 20-minute attack ad for the left to use on Republicans for the next election cycle and beyond.

Observers might call this stand selfless statesmanship, but a true statesman distinguishes himself from the operative, ideologue, or even philosopher by mediating between the real and ideal, prudently seeking out the possible without regard to his own interests. After five years of Russian and Ukrainian conspiracy theories and loudly cheered mob violence against Americans, Washington Democrats sought to smear the president and his supporters as the sole culprits of our divisions. They’d been hurling these accusations for years, and the terrible mob attack on the Capitol combined with Trump’s refusal to accept a finished-if-deeply-flawed election gave them the sword to make one last, unconstitutional try of it. McConnell tried to swing that sword.

“I think his speech is an outlier regarding how Republicans feel about this, “Graham said Sunday. “…The process they used to impeach this president was an affront to the rule of law… The trial record was a complete joke, hearsay upon hearsay, and… if you use this model I don’t know how [Vice President] Kamala Harris doesn’t get impeached if Republicans take back the House because she actually bailed out rioters and one of the rioters went back to the streets and broke somebody’s head open. So we’ve opened Pandora’s Box here and I’m sad for the country.”

Graham is right. The second impeachment trial was the final act in years of Democrats trying to usurp the former president and isolate and ostracize his supporters. After January’s shocking $8.3 million post-election fundraising haul — driven largely by small gifts averaging $32 a person — the decline of corporate and PAC influence in favor of base voters’ influence is starkly visible. Corporate politicians like McConnell don’t like this shift because it makes them responsible to that base, so this year, instead of trying to lead a changing party, he stamped approval on Democrats’ attacks on it.

Far from over, as so many in power would prefer, the lines of the populist conservative fight for the Republican Party and the country are more clearly and publicly drawn than ever before. When they eventually take back the Senate as the pendulum of voter anger inevitably swings back against the current Washington rulers, Senate Republicans would do well to remember the opening months of 2021 — and remember Mitch McConnell.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: antifa; blacklivesmatter; camelfaceharris; capitolriot; demonratparty; donaldtrump; foxnewssunday; impeachment20; lindseygraham; mitchmcconnell; republicanparty
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1 posted on 02/15/2021 5:49:57 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

The UniParty’s intent is to permanently disenfranchise the vote of the American electorate


2 posted on 02/15/2021 5:52:20 AM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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To: Kaslin

McConnell is for McConnell.


3 posted on 02/15/2021 5:54:26 AM PST by FreedBird (T)
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To: FreedBird

ehh....for Mrs. McConnell and hers primarily


4 posted on 02/15/2021 5:55:25 AM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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To: Kaslin

McConnell is a worm, but my focus is not on him it is on the traitors. The ten House members and seven Senators that betrayed us with their treasonous votes.


5 posted on 02/15/2021 5:56:57 AM PST by Dragonspirit (CNN is the enemy. Ashli Babbitt is the hero.)
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To: Dragonspirit

to be fair...those 10 in the House and 7 in the Senate were merely responding to the “carrot or stick” show which is how DC operates.


6 posted on 02/15/2021 5:58:59 AM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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To: Kaslin

A lot of problems with the GOP, but the biggest problem is the enormous disconnect between the people who fund the Republican party and the people who vote for Republicans. McConnell - and roughly 80% of the GOP Congressional Caucus - represents the interests of the people/companies writing checks to the GOP. There is *maybe* 20% of the Caucus that actually want the same things more GOP voters want.

I’m not sure how or even if that can be remedied. I’m skeptical it can be.

Democrats are fortunate insomuch that their billionaire funders are also movement progressives. In fact, some of their most strident, left-wing voices are some of their biggest contributors. Republicans have billionaires who want to reduce regulations on Big Corporations (but don’t a hoot about small businesses), make it easier to import cheap labor and goods and advance the left’s war on social conservatives.

The seemingly irreparable schism in the GOP is exactly the thing the Left has been hoping for since Reagan.


7 posted on 02/15/2021 5:59:53 AM PST by ScubaDiver (Reddit refugee.)
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To: Kaslin

How do you net impeach Senile Joe for bribery?


8 posted on 02/15/2021 6:01:54 AM PST by bray (Pray for fake President Biden)
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To: Kaslin

McConnell cares more about his own standing in the political establishment than Trump or America. He wants to remain an insider in good standing, one of the “untouchables”, and one who will be welcomed into the “New Capitalism” of the Great Reset. Trump is not a Republican. He is an outsider and disrupter who stood in the way of the One World government to come.


9 posted on 02/15/2021 6:03:42 AM PST by Brooklyn Attitude (I went to bed on November 3rd 2020 and woke up in 1984.)
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To: Kaslin
It was the last stupid moments of the minority leader's plan to purge the GOP of Donald Trump -- a plan that began to unravel nearly immediately after its poorly conceived Jan. 12 rollout in the pages of The New York Times.

Granted impeachment 2 stands there, but it is part of a larger plan, a plan that ran from the moment Trump declared his candidacy.

McConnel and his wing of the GOP has always been undermining anybody who does not embrace the globalist / US-imperialism agenda.

At any rate, sides are being drawn and are fairly well entrenched. Hopefully the ranks of "Team Mcconnel" (which includes Lindsey Graham) experience shrinking.

10 posted on 02/15/2021 6:04:42 AM PST by Cboldt
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To: Kaslin

Don’t worry. I will NEVER forget what he did AND all the other crap these Republicucks have said and done.


11 posted on 02/15/2021 6:10:11 AM PST by HighSierra5
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To: Kaslin

At this point, I think that anyone who still identifies as a “Republican” probably supports McConnell and considers the GOP base to be deplorable.


12 posted on 02/15/2021 6:10:24 AM PST by ClearCase_guy ("I see you did something -- why you so racist?")
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To: Kaslin

Who keeps re-electing B!tch Occonnell!


13 posted on 02/15/2021 6:13:14 AM PST by SgtHooper (If you remember the 60's, YOU WEREN'T THERE!)
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To: Kaslin

Mitch has been undermining and backstabbing President Trump from the beginning of Trump’s administration. sometimes openly, but mostly in the dark.

Recall how he kept the senate in session always so Trump could not make recess appointments,

When I happened to tune in to part of that speech, my thoughts were, what in the heck does he think will accomplish with this? That was a time to let the rhetoric cool down, but he amped it up to new levels.


14 posted on 02/15/2021 6:13:42 AM PST by Will88 (The only people opposing voter ID are those benefiting from voter fraud.)
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To: ScubaDiver

Good post.

BTTT


15 posted on 02/15/2021 6:15:51 AM PST by xzins (Retired US Army chaplain. Support our troops by praying for their victory. )
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To: Will88

I believe that Trump was coming to close to McConnell’s illicit operations with China. The family fortune, and perhaps that of other Republican senators, was in danger.


16 posted on 02/15/2021 6:18:57 AM PST by Bookshelf
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To: Kaslin

Censure Mitch.


17 posted on 02/15/2021 6:22:47 AM PST by gcparent (Justice Amy Coney Barrett)
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To: HighSierra5

Afterall, we are represented by the elephant, and elephants REMEMBER.


18 posted on 02/15/2021 6:25:25 AM PST by Karoo
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To: Kaslin
McConnell knows the party isn't his anymore. I doubt he'll run next time around, and he's decided to torch everything behind him as he walks out the door...


19 posted on 02/15/2021 6:29:23 AM PST by Magnatron
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To: Bookshelf

Mitch seemed like someone almost out of control, driven by fear and hatred and resentment. You know he’s just been barely holding all that in for most of the past four years.


20 posted on 02/15/2021 6:30:59 AM PST by Will88 (The only people opposing voter ID are those benefiting from voter fraud.)
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