Earlier this week, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell took to the floor in the upper chamber and delivered an unexpected speech announcing his intention to relinquish his position after the upcoming election. As usual, his remarks were thoughtful and well-crafted. His decision elicited predictable celebrations among his legions of critics on both ends of the political spectrum. I've always understood why leftists would despise McConnell: He's been the most effective Republican Congressional leader in decades, operating savvily and craftily as he's handed Democrats a litany of bruising, consequential losses. They hate McConnell because he's conservative, he's good at what he does, he plays the long game, and he's impervious to their histrionics. For those reasons, I've sometimes struggled to understand why so many people on the Right revile McConnell. The reality is that GOP leaders on the Hill rarely remain popular with the base because they have a responsibility to govern, which requires compromise. That is especially true in the Senate, and especially during divided government.
McConnell hasn't enjoyed the luxury of playing to the loudest voices within his tribe's media and activist ecosystem, thus earning cheap and easy applause from some, while alienating others. He's had to manage the Mike Lee's and Rand Paul's within his caucus, while also corralling members with dramatically different priorities, dispositions and worldviews, such as Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney. This is no easy task, and anyone who confidently asserts that they, or someone else, could do a better job (particularly by "fighting" harder) is kidding themselves. While I've disagreed with McConnell on certain issues and tactical decisions, his thorough speeches on behalf of his positions -- delivered in his trademark deep-voiced, deadpan monotone that often threatens to put even the most engaged observer to sleep -- almost always give me pause and at least compel me to re-examine my position. And when I've found myself on the opposite side of McConnell's tactical maneuvers, without exception, I second-guess my own calculation. Because if nothing else, the man thinks strategically. Mitch McConnell is not flashy. He's not exciting. But whatever conclusion he's reached on a matter of consequence, it's quite likely that he's considered it more carefully than most others have, whether one ultimately ends up agreeing with him or not.
In a particularly stupid and shallow era of American politics, McConnell is a rare 'adult in the room.' He's hated for it. But like certain other adults in the room (former Attorney General Bill Barr comes to mind), his secret sauce has been refusing to be swept away by the prevailing political tides, scared and adrift like flotsam and jetsam. He understands where the winds are blowing, of course, but they aren't his ultimate guide. More salient, however, is Erick Erickson's brilliant diagnosis of McConnell's most potent superpower: Not caring about his critics' fear and loathing. While I've occasionally been bothered by the attacks he absorbs, particularly from the Right, McConnell seems to disregard them with a cold, almost dead-eyed, unflappability. I hear you. Your concerns are noted. I don't care. Erickson opens his essay on this subject with a personal anecdote, and a belated realization:
Unlike a lot of conservatives gleefully cheering on Mitch McConnell’s announcement that he will step down as Senate Republican Leader in November, after the election, I actually paid a price for vocally opposing McConnell. In 2014, I used my platform at RedState to back Matt Bevin’s race against McConnell. I was one year into my contract at Fox News. Roger Ailes told me to stop bashing McConnell or stop going on Fox. I was sidelined at Fox for the next two years. And McConnell beat Bevin. I learned Mitch McConnell does not care. He does not care because he was busy putting points on the board. As conservative agitators, rarely were I and my side in the win column against McConnell. Much of the rage directed at McConnell since noon yesterday and before has a lot to do with that — McConnell kept winning, and he didn’t care...Mitch McConnell does not care that Republicans or Democrats dislike him. McConnell not caring about those things made him dangerously successful at his job. He had to care about a majority of the Republicans in the United States Senate, not you or me.
Points on the board. Precisely. Examples:
Mitch McConnell did not care about your or my temper tantrums and demands because he has long understood that a Republican majority, for better or worse, had the power to block the administrative state and build a judiciary that has no term limits or elections for its members. He has cared very deeply about that...Because Mitch McConnell does not care about what others think, he was happy to be the bad guy and denied Merrick Garland even an examination. McConnell made himself the villain so other Republicans could denounce McConnell, play nice on television, and win re-election. If you think other Republicans could have or would have done what McConnell did, you display your ignorance of what transpired behind closed doors to keep Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine onboard Bret Kavanaugh’s nomination. If you think any other Republican would have or could have done what McConnell did, you have no grasp of the Senate’s operating flow and how McConnell expedited and rammed through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination in the waning days of Republican Senate control in 2020.
Any Republican President could have picked a Gorsuch, a Kavanaugh, or a Barrett. But neither a Frist nor a Lott would have moved heaven and earth to get them all expeditiously to the bench. McConnell did because he cared about that...What do we have to show for [McConnell's leadership]? The end of Roe v. Wade, a 6-3 United States Supreme Court, a Republican appointed majority in six of the Courts of Appeal, near parity in several more, the end of most gun control legislation, blocking the Paris Accord and climate change legislation, the Trump tax cuts, the death of the individual mandate, and an aggressive culling of regulations imposed by the Obama Administration at the end of his term.
The reshaping of the courts, and the current Supreme Court majority in particular, is McConnell's most significant (and likely most satisfying to him) legacy. When it truly mattered most, McConnell was most shrewd, most ruthless, and most successful. Here is the fitting conclusion to Erickson's somewhat begrudging, and therefore meaningful, tribute:
As a long-time critic, I am an admirer from afar of a man I have never actually met or spoken to. He won. He kept on winning. He beat my friends. He and his loyal lieutenants ruthlessly advanced...Conservatives have the luxury of cheering on McConnell’s retirement because they have so much of what McConnell cared about and very little memory of how much worse the Republicans who preceded him in that position were. In the meantime, Roe is dead, and the legislature filibuster is alive. So, thanks, Mitch. You’ve earned your place in the history books as not just the longest-serving senator from the Commonwealth of Kentucky or the longest-serving Republican Leader in the Senate but also as a giant of the American political landscape.
McConnell's successor will have big shoes to fill, and will quickly learn that the position comes with a lot of political discomfort and vilification, from all angles. To advance the ball and win the year or decade -- as opposed to the moment -- he or she would be well-served to emulate wily old "cocaine" Mitch, and embrace the subtle but rare art of not caring. For America. I'll leave you with McConnell's aforementioned speech:
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