New Zealand Listener

MITCH MALIGNED?

If, a few weeks ago, I’d made a list of statements I confidently expected never to make, this would have been near the top: I feel a bit sorry for Mitch McConnell.

Although Donald Trump is the spray-tanned face of the Republican Party’s ascendant populist/nativist/authoritarian tendency, McConnell, now Senate minority leader, is the architect and enforcer of a ruthless, zero-sum-game parliamentary approach that has degraded American government to the detriment of most Americans.

One of McConnell’s final acts as Senate majority leader was to delay impeachment proceedings until Trump had left office, thereby enabling Republicans to oppose convicting him on. Unlike Antony, McConnell really did come to bury Trump, not to praise him.

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