Mitch McConnell will leave a GOP he helped build, but no longer recognizes | Opinion
I watched Sen. McConnell help build the Republican Party into a political force, then watched MAGA take over.
Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday, the day he turned 83, that this would be his final term in office and he would not seek reelection in 2026.
The Republican senator from Kentucky will have served seven terms in office, and was the longest serving Senate party leader in American history, from 2007 until this year.
While I agree with his decision given his recent health issues, it still saddens me. McConnell is the most effective Republican leader of this century, but now he is leaving a GOP that he barely recognizes.
McConnell is the most effective Republican in modern politics
McConnell's impact on the federal government is clear. He was instrumental in building Republican successes, and limiting what Democrats could do when they were in power.
He prevented much of President Barack Obama's agenda from becoming a reality and prevented Merrick Garland from being confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, paving the way for President Donald Trump to nominate Neil Gorsuch instead.
Even with Trump's chaotic first presidency, McConnell remained effective. He turned what should have been an entirely incompetent administration into one that produced three originalist Supreme Court justices and led the confirmation of massive numbers of federal judges, cementing a conservative legal system that will likely stand for decades.
McConnell helped Trump's first presidency, then failed at ending it
His biggest shortcoming was his inability to steer the party away from Trump.
We see that clearly during the Trump impeachment proceedings following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. McConnell failed to unite the Republican Party behind Trump’s impeachment conviction when Democrats only needed a handful of Republican conversions to help. Despite blaming Trump for Jan. 6, McConnell declined to vote to convict him.
Blaming or crediting Trump’s prominence on one man is unfair, but it is natural when someone has as much influence on an entire party as McConnell has.
There is a good chance Republicans would have still gone MAGA regardless of how much McConnell and others like him pushed back.
Still, I can't help but look at McConnell’s mishandling of Trump and his failure to move the party past MAGA as his biggest mistake. Instead, McConnell joined the ranks of other "RINOs" who dared to oppose Trump. Like Mitt Romney, John McCain, Paul Ryan, Liz Cheney and Mike Pence before him, McConnell's legacy will be remembered as another Republican leader who dared to stand up to Trump and eventually went away.
GOP will be worse without McConnell, even if MAGA doesn't know it
Even in the waning years of his life of public service, McConnell has stayed true to his beliefs, sadly to little recent impact. It took McConnell and those like him years to build their Republican Party, and the MAGA tsunami destroyed much of what they built in eight short years.
He voted against the confirmations of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and national intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard into Trump’s Cabinet, representing a last protest against the direction of Trump’s second administration. Each of these nominees was confirmed, painting a sad picture of McConnell’s departure and showing how his influence is all but gone.
Even during staunch debates over Ukraine aid, McConnell fought hard to keep the funding alive, even as the GOP’s support for the besieged country waned.
However, even his impact in this arena seems for naught at this point, given Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine this week.
McConnell has pledged to spend his remaining days in office “fighting back against the isolationist movement,” a sentiment that has taken over the GOP in recent years. The reality is that McConnell has been fighting against MAGA for years, even as he has helped them win elections for Republicans' sake.
The GOP that stood during McConnell’s early years as leader is not the one there now as he retires. Despite what he did to make the best of the party’s populist shift, it was not enough to keep the GOP conservative.
Without McConnell, Republicans will inevitably fill his seat with a less competent, less principled individual. The Republican Party is losing its most gifted political navigator in my lifetime, and the GOP will be worse off for it.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for Paste BN and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.