The McConnell betrayal: Why Republicans never win

By Richard McDonough, AM THINKER

Satan: “Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.”

John MiltonParadise Lost, Book I

Establishment Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently did his best to “sabotage” Republicans’ chances of re-taking the Senate when he implied that the “quality” of the anti-establishment Trump-supporting Republican Senate candidates is subpar:

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different [because] candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” he said.

Similarly, when Joe Biden was on the ropes with dreadful poll numbers for his disastrous policies, the usual cast of weakling closet Democrats in the Republican Party did their best to give poor old Joe and the Democrat party some talking points for the November 2022 midterms by helping them pass their bloated inflationary infrastructure bill and their silly gun-grabbing “red flag” gun control bill.

The weakling Republicans, who get all wet and willing every time they hear a vacuous appeal to emotional fallacy just couldn’t help themselves when Joe said, “From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets, how many times have you heard that, ‘just do something, for God’s sake just do something’?”

Of course, Joe is thrilled that his poll numbers began to rise after his Republican cronies like Lindsay Graham, who once, in a fit of emotion, gushed that the man who just called half the country “semi-fascists” is “as good a man as God ever created” and on another occasion stated that its impossible not to like Joe Biden.  It is obvious that Graham is not right about everything.

Conservatives wonder why the party leaders that are supposed to represent them do such a poor job of doing so, and why, frankly, they as voters keep getting cynically shafted by these same Republican leaders.

Unfortunately, many establishment-Republican leaders do not appear to grasp that the rise of Trump was due precisely to rank-and-file anger at weak undependable Republican leadership that was not put there to enrich itself but to represent the Republican base and stick to conservative principles, on the economy, on education, on guns, and on immigration.

Perhaps the most important of these, Sen. McConnell, does not appear to be bothered by the fact that he is both the most unpopular senator but also that he has lost the confidence of most Republicans.  Astonishing, it appears that McConnell may prefer to lose the Senate and continue to subject the country to Biden’s hellish policies rather than lose his status as minority leader if a sufficient number of Trump-Republicans win their Senate races.  The fact that the Republican base still prefers Trump should settle the debate for McConnell no matter what his private views.   Unfortunately, it is all too obvious that it is very easy in D.C. to sacrifice one’s principles in order to be one of “the big guys.”

Conservatives never win because many establishment Republican leaders are what Trump said they are: weak.  Lindsay Graham, John Kennedy, Ted Cruz and other influential Republicans need to remind McConnell that it is not about him.  It is about conservative and Republican voters.  The fate of the country may depend on it.

September 4, 2022 | 3 Comments »

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  1. I think McDonough misses a key point in his criticism of McConnell’s disdain for MAGA candidates and also ignores the real challenge which MAGA candidates face.

    Consider the chastisement of McConnell in the following statement,

    Establishment Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently did his best to “sabotage” Republicans’ chances of re-taking the Senate when he implied that the “quality” of the anti-establishment Trump-supporting Republican Senate candidates is subpar

    Whereas McConnell will do his level best to oppose any MAGA candidates, and this was the purpose of his ridicule of MAGA candidates, it could hardly have held any challenge for the MAGA candidates and would likely only improve their support among the voters. Consequently, it can not be useful for MAGA to cite ridicule from the likes of McConnell and Cheney and Pence as to causing their loss.

    When we look at the clear evidence of election tampering with vote counting in states where MAGA is failing, such as Colorado, suggesting that the candidates were affected by China Mitch’s criticism is as irrelevant as the notion that the candidates might not be suitable for the high office which they are seeking.

    So long as elections are reduced to the selection of candidates chosen by the elite establishment via machine tampering, no political attack or defense can be said to be actually relevant to the election’s outcome. The candidates are selected.

    McDonough’s suggestion that McConnell’s hexing rebuke of MAGA candidates is relevant ignores the reality that the only MAGA candidates who might be successful in overwhelming the system must have massive turnout on election day and must likewise have previously purged the election rolls of potential ghost voters, which can be used by the establishment to ghost vote the MAGA movement into a perceived state of obsolescence.

    In closing McDonough states that

    Conservatives never win because many establishment Republican leaders are what Trump said they are: weak.

    Here again, McDonough misses the truth of the matter. Conservatives don’t lose because Republican leaders are weak.

    In a fair fight, a particularly loathsome candidate would have a significant advantage of the fact that they are running downhill against the swamp which is well disliked by so many. Under such circumstances, any attention directed at their loathsome nature might be helpful to undue their candidacy. Under the current circumstances, however, they are running uphill, against the machines, which can only be defeated with a coordinated campaign of cleaning the voter rolls and focusing the election turnout on the day of the election. By failing on either of these points is how MAGA candidates lose.

    In short, the defeat of MAGA candidates is not based on an honest failing in popular support as directed by the scorn of Republican elites, or the machine manipulations would hardly be needed. They are failing because the establishment prefer to pick winners and losers with a knowing level of certainty of the selection outcome, and that is achieved, not thru public derision, warranted or not, but with the vote manipulation provided by the control of the machines.

  2. I understand that MAGA Republicans don’t like McConnell very much, and that the sentiment is reciprocal, but when he:

    implied that the “quality” of the anti-establishment Trump-supporting Republican Senate candidates is subpar,

    he might be right. Being MAGA doesn’t automatically make you good Congressional material, nor does it automatically make you electable.