The most expensive midterm election in history just ended, and you know what that means: the even more expensive 2028 presidential contest is now underway. There are many culprits in this erosion of democracy, but one stands out: Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.
OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign finance, reported that by Monday, November 2, an estimated $12 billion had already been spent in this round. Where did the money come from?
A New York Times study showed 20 billionaires – mostly Republicans – alone spent some $2 billion buying politicians just this election cycle, nearly one quarter of that coming from a single donor, Elon Musk.
If you’ve been watching Musk over the past two years, whether you’re in Washington, Kyiv, Moscow, or anywhere in between, you know his interests are enhancing his own wealth and power, not the national interest.
Those billions haven’t given America the best government money can buy; instead, it’s more like confirming the biblical verse “money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
Billionaires who meddle with everyday American citizens’ lives aren’t after common good
And if, as we approach Thanksgiving, you want to acknowledge the turkey most responsible for handing such power to the world’s richest man and the mega-wealthy, I nominate Sen. McConnell.
At 84, the Kentucky Republican has spent half his life in the Senate, including 18 years as the longest-serving and arguably the most consequential Republican leader.
He leaves an indelible mark on Washington that will plague politics for many years.
McConnell played a central role in reshaping and politicizing the federal judiciary and eroded public confidence in the courts more than anyone before.
His legacy is indelibly tarnished by “demolishing campaign finance laws” and “opening the floodgates to a deluge of dollars into US elections,” according to John Schaaf, an attorney who has written extensively about Kentucky politics and McConnell’s role.
There has been “no more effective or energetic foe” of restrictions on political spending, said Dan Cohen, a veteran Republican political consultant. “He thinks and acts like money in politics is constitutionally protected free speech.”
His leadership in dismantling the post-Watergate campaign finance reforms was the cornerstone of his power, and he parlayed it into becoming the Senate’s most prolific fundraiser.
Small contributions to favored candidates come with no strings, but when it’s the mega-wealthy and corporations doing the giving, the money comes with ropes and chains.
His job was to focus on enacting legislation assuring investors got a good return on their money. McConnell created the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that continues to pour millions into Republican campaigns.
Another source of power has been his mastery of the Senate’s arcane rules, traditions, and processes. Sometimes that meant bending or inventing his own rules.
McConnell blocked president Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland in February 2016, nine months before the election, by claiming the “vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” He refused even to give Garland a hearing.
But when a vacancy arose four years later under a Republican president only five weeks before the 2020 election, he shamelessly scrapped the “McConnell rule” and rammed through the Senate President Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
That led to a six-three conservative majority that has far too often bent to Trump’s demands, giving him virtually unlimited power and immunity. The president thinks immunity is absolute – “I can do whatever I want, if I want” – and when, on rare occasions, the court rules against the administration, he rails about disloyalty to the president who put its members on the bench.
McConnell’s double standards cause irreparable damage to US judiciary system
Little wonder the Supreme Court, which faces criticism for moving too far to the Right and resisting calls for reform amid ethics scandals, has seen its approval rating fall to an all-time low of 34 percent, according to Gallup polling.
Liam Donovan, a former Republican campaign aide, said the “audacious” Garland blockade was McConnell’s “single most consequential act as a leader.”
Jason Johnson, a professor of politics and journalism at Morgan State University, told Politico McConnell’s “legacy should be one of shame, moral turpitude, and obstruction.”
McConnell used his majority to shamelessly block hundreds of Obama’s judicial nominees only to push through legions of unqualified and often politically extreme Trump judges.
McConnell and Trump make no secret of their mutual animosity, yet the senator proved an underappreciated and unequaled enabler.
He was never obsequious or obedient enough for Trump, notably rejecting presidential demands to remove the filibuster to neutralize any Democratic opposition to his agenda.
But the greatest service McConnell gave his party’s leader was his unpardonable “failure to convict Trump in the second impeachment and disqualify him from serving in any office,” said Mona Charen of the Bulwark.
On January 6, 2021, he seemed to recognize the enormity and danger of what Trump ignited that day. He called it a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty” and said the president himself was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”
McConnell later said, “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next.”
The House impeached Trump on January 13, 2021, on a bipartisan vote, for inciting the insurrection and sent it to the Senate to decide whether to remove him from office. McConnell, who controlled the Senate agenda, held the vote until after Joe Biden took office.
The Senate vote to convict was 57-43, including seven Republicans. For all his righteous talk, McConnell voted to acquit, explaining that the Senate lacked jurisdiction because Trump was out of office.
It was a time to lead, and McConnell went AWOL. “If he had voted to convict, he would have given cover to others who wanted to remove him,” said Cohen. “This term of Trump is the consequence of that failure.”
McConnell bears considerable responsibility for this corrupt, chaotic, and inept US administration and its frontal assault on American democracy, and he has consistently lacked the courage to lead when leadership was needed most.
Will this week’s election produce leaders committed to fixing an electoral system that is so badly corrupted?
I’m not optimistic when I see how much money was spent and know that the only ones who can fix it are the beneficiaries of all that out-of-control spending – the incumbents. Do you really think they’re about to kill the golden geese?
Thanks, Mitch.