Will GOP leaders betray us again, post-red wave?

It is all too likely our Republican leaders will betray us once again and will turn our Nov. 8 victory into a defeat.

It is all too likely we will once again suffer the "death of a thousand cuts" at the hands of our leadership – bleeding away the impact of electoral success and draining the life from our great movement.

Sen. Mitch McConnell will likely hold GOP leadership in the Senate; who can stop him? He likely will be erroneously credited with the success of new and MAGA Republican senators – even though he fought against the election of most of them.

Even though his leadership is uninspired and uninspiring. Even though more often than not he uses his power in opposition to both conservative and America First principles. Even though he betrays his base with clock-like regularity.

Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell are worse than Democrats. At least Democrats fight for their own. At least Democrats are loyal to their brand.

It is more than likely Republicans will also impose upon themselves a second defeat – by electing Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.

McCarthy, too, will wrongly be credited with the Republicans' victory this fall, despite his Herculean efforts to prevent the election of any Republican not loyal to him.

The existing and newly crowned MAGA candidates will likely not achieve numbers sufficient to unseat McCarthy. Once again we will be saddled with an ineffectual and inarticulate Republican leader, one already long compromised by his donors. McCarthy will persist, however, absent courage, absent vision and absent the wisdom to promote the America First ideas of his new colleagues.

“I’m an optimist...but let’s wait and see. Lot of the new breed is taking over.”

Gingrich led a Republican new wave in 1994 which included a takeover of the House majority by Republicans for the first time in decades. Over time the new wave of “conservative” Republicans in the 1990’s moved into leadership positions — among them: John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Lindsay Graham, Richard Burr, John Thune — moved into leadership positions and became committed to the establishment.

In 2010, an organic populist movement (the Tea Party) gave Republicans a majority in the House. After the election Republican leadership under new Speaker John Boehner promptly distanced itself from the Tea Party. In the 2012 presidential election, GOP candidate Mitt Romney wanted no Tea Party support.

The GOP won the House and Senate as well as the presidency in 2016. Instead of passing conservative legislation and rolling back the leviathan federal government, the GOP leadership in the House and Senate (Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell) spent two years fighting GOP President Trump and undermining his conservative populist agenda.

If the GOP wins both houses of Congress in the 2022 election, Kevin McCarthy will be Speaker of the House and Mitch McConnell will be Majority Leader of the Senate. Mitch has been around Washington forever and his track record shows he will oppose a MAGA agenda and support the inside the beltway agenda of the donors and the Bush wing of the party. Kevin McCarthy served as Republican Whip under GOP Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader under Speaker Paul Ryan. Since 2019 he has served as minority leader. McCarthy is pure establishment.

We can be optimistic. However, history suggests we will be disappointed.

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