How Mitch McConnell’s dance with Donald Trump really works

How Mitch McConnell’s dance with Donald Trump really works

Paul Waldman — Read time: 4 minutes

Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seem to have sincere contempt for one another. But if Trump wins the White House in 2024 — and if the GOP avoids a crackup over the disturbing directions it is taking — it will in no small part be the Kentucky Republican’s doing.

That’s despite the fact that, for some time, McConnell has been the least popular politician in America. Democrats hate him, and so do plenty of Republicans. But unlike most politicians, McConnell doesn’t much care about being liked. And even when it appears he’s taking sides in a conflict within the GOP, he’s actually the glue holding the whole enterprise together.

That’s the real meaning of the dustup over the party voting to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). The resolution condemned the two for serving on the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, saying they were “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

McConnell criticized the resolution, reminding everyone that Jan. 6 was a “violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, after a legitimately certified election.” He was not the only Republican to do so, but he was the most important.

Unlike his House counterpart, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), McConnell doesn’t need Trump’s approval to keep his position. So he’s free to break from the former president when he realizes that opening a safety valve to release the pressure Trump creates is just what the party needs.

As much as we usually consider party unity to be vital for political success, in this case this is not a fight either side needs to win. In fact, it’s better if nobody wins. What Republicans want is for everyone on their side, from the establishment plutocrat to the suburban moderate to the looniest QAnon conspiracist, to all believe the GOP is still their home. If you want Republicans to win, rather than lamenting this intramural squabbling, you should be grateful.

McConnell no doubt understands the central challenge the GOP faces today: With the party increasingly dominated by extremists and cranks, and with the highly unpopular Trump likely to be its standard-bearer in 2024, how can it obtain the votes it needs to win control of Washington?

Which is where McConnell is so vital. His regular rebukes of Trumpian excess will serve as a reminder that the party isn’t unified, and therefore there’s room for people who believe in conservative policy goals but find Trump repugnant. And he offers reassurance that if Republicans take over again, they’ll pursue their traditional agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and right-wing judges.

Which is an important way for hesitant Republicans to justify staying in the party even if Trump returns. Yes, he was a force of chaos and hate, they can tell themselves, but what did his first term really produce? We got that big tax cut, didn’t we? And as much as Trump might brag about how he transformed the judiciary (especially the Supreme Court), it wasn’t his doing, it was McConnell’s.

Before he became president, if you told Trump the names Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, he probably would have thought they were assistant managers at one of his hotels (like Frederick Douglass, who has “done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more”). It was McConnell who got them on the court to create a 6-to-3 supermajority, and he’ll be the one to continue that project.

And if McConnell gets scorned by Fox News and other conservative media? That’s fine too. It’s red meat for the base and the outrage machine. McConnell needs base voters to stay angry, just as he needs more moderate Republicans to be reassured that he’ll be there to contain Trump’s impulses and advance the more traditional conservative agenda. The rubes will be fed social media spats and stories of triumphant lib-owning, while the Chamber of Commerce writes the laws.

This is a subtle dance, and it doesn’t always succeed. For instance, despite McConnell’s efforts to help two incumbent Republican senators from Georgia in the 2021 runoffs — which included passing an extra stimulus bill so they could say they delivered checks to folks back home — Trump’s presence was so dominant and damaging that Democrats won both races, costing McConnell his majority.

Which shows that as long as Trump is on the scene, he’s the most important force determining the GOP’s fate. But without McConnell — and just enough party disunity to make it seem like a big tent — he won’t get back to the White House.