By Kevin D. Williamson
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
I am annoyed at and dismayed by Senator
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. And that is not an easy
thing for the honorary president of the Cocaine Mitch fan club to write.
Senator McConnell is a true genius when it
comes to delays, an artist of adjournment, a Picasso of procrastination, a
Homer of holding patterns, a Leonardo of loitering, a Rembrandt of retardation
— yes, I can keep going! — let’s just
say that he is the Machiavelli of not getting stuff done.
This is why Senator McConnell is one of
our most valuable and most effective politicians.
Senator McConnell is perfectly habituated
to the institution he serves, because his inclinations reinforce the Senate’s
one great enduring virtue: It is not the House of Representatives. Democrats
may complain of Senator McConnell’s “legislative graveyard,” but this does not
do him full justice, because his graveyard is not merely legislative but
judicial as well: Ask Merrick Garland about that.
In a government that lurches from one
phony crisis to the next, from adhocracy to omnibus to continuing resolution,
Senator McConnell is in no hurry to get anything done. And 99 times out of 100,
that is the best course of action.
Removing Donald Trump from office is the
1-in-100 occasion when it isn’t.
Donald Trump’s actions since losing the
election have been criminal. They have also been destabilizing, which is, in
some ways, worse. We can live with a little petty crime in Washington, D.C.,
from time to time — we cannot live with the incumbent president using the
awesome powers at his command to attempt to overturn an election, which Trump
has done twice — once through corruption, and once through violence. And before
you sprain your thumbs, I hope the Trump apologists will spare me their staking
their case on one adjective in his pre–coup
d’état-attempt speech. Trump’s calling for a “peaceful” mob scene is like
the local thug with a protection racket saying: “Nice little business you have.
Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Senator McConnell, who has navigated the
Trump era about as well as any Republican in office — without the
self-inflicted degradation and ignominy of Senate colleagues such as Ted Cruz
and Lindsey Graham — is said to be in a rage (I do wonder how the face of Mitch
McConnell registers rage) about the
sacking of the Capitol by Trump’s murderous mob. But he made no effort to bring
the Senate back to take up the impeachment charge put forward by the House.
He should have.
Many of the lawyers and political
engineers who have weighed in on the subject dismiss this complaint, insisting
that, as a practical matter, there was nothing Senator McConnell could do. Even
if he had convened the Senate for a trial, it would have stretched past the inauguration
of Joe Biden (which we assume will not be prevented by another homicidal
rabble) and into Trump’s ex-presidency (which we assume will begin as
scheduled), and that any urgent action on the part of Senator McConnell would
have been largely symbolic.
There are good occasions for symbolism.
This is one of them.
If you are a budget bore like me, then you
may remember budget sequestration with some nostalgia. It was one of the few
modern-era efforts at imposing fiscal control on Washington that kinda-sorta
worked. It also was treated as an existential crisis in Washington — because it
worked. Which was why it had to be gutted. Sequestration mechanisms remain on
the books, but Congress has put meaningful cuts off through a series of
short-term measures that together constitute the long-term abandonment of the
approach. Sequestration is destined to end up a legislative formality,
something like the Logan Act, on the books since 1799, often talked about but
never actually used.
Without getting too far into the weeds,
let me offer this observation: When some well-connected rat-fink government
contractor in Northern Virginia misses a check, Washington treats that like a crisis. Some peon bureaucrat
gets furloughed, that’s a crisis.
It’s a national goddamn emergency. When the sitting president — who has
threatened to arrest political opponents on treason charges and apparently
engages in speculative talk about martial law in the Oval Office, who has sworn
he will never concede his defeat — goes and makes multiple attempts to overturn
the election . . . well, I guess we’ll get to it when we get to it.
We should have got to it.
Perhaps, if I may be so bold as to offer
the suggestion, a little urgency is in order here. Perhaps Republicans can
rediscover their sense of priority when it comes time to convict Trump — and he
must be convicted — and permanently disqualify him from any office.
Republicans are now talking idiotically
about “unity,” that second-to-last refuge of a scoundrel, and the Trumpist
element among them warns darkly that any serious effort to convict Trump of the
offense of which he is manifestly guilty would “divide the party.”
Divide the party? That is a consummation devoutly to be
wished.
Nothing would be better for the Republican
Party than for it to be divided. Maybe one of the two surviving halves would be
worth joining, worth voting for, worth trusting. Yes, I suspect that that would
be the smaller half — at first. Conservatives should be willing to live with
that — for now. The Republicans didn’t win their first one out of the gate with
John C. Frémont, either. Change takes time. Amputations are painful, but they
also save lives.
Republicans who are clinging to Trump and
his movement as a life-raft are making a titanic mistake, and I am rooting for
the iceberg. I cannot say that I will be very sorry to see them go down with
the ship.
And if Titanic
isn’t the show you have in mind, think of it this way: Republicans seem to
believe they are watching an American Coriolanus;
in reality, they’re extras in The Music
Man.
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