McConnell and McCarthy are playing different games with Trump. They might both win.

February 19, 2021

By Ruth Marcus,

Among elected Republicans these days, there are two primary approaches to dealing with former president Donald Trump. One is abject appeasement — as exemplified by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The other, embodied by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is resistance-lite.

The men share a common and unnervingly achievable goal — regaining the majority in their chambers in 2022 — but are going about it in very different ways. As much as the Republican Party is embroiled in a larger conversation about its ideological path and the future of Trumpism, that’s not really what’s happening here. McCarthy vs. McConnell is more of a tactical disagreement over methods of effective Trump management.

The McCarthy way involves an initial, faint peep of protest followed by fawning capitulation. The man Trump liked to refer to as “my Kevin” has backtracked from asserting, in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, that “the President bears responsibility” for the riot to asserting that “I don’t believe he provoked it” to making a craven pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to beseech Trump for help in 2022.

After the makeup session, Trump was reportedly “livid” that McCarthy (Calif.) stood by Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) when House Republicans voted by secret ballot to retain her as conference chair. Trump was angered again by disclosures about his heated phone call with McCarthy in the midst of the insurrection. McCarthy may be back in the Trump doghouse but, if past performance is any guide, he will do whatever it takes to whimper and scratch his way out of it.

McConnell’s calculus is different and has so far yielded a different outcome. Having slid down the constitutional escape hatch of Trump’s being out of office to vote to acquit him, McConnell (Ky.) then unloaded. “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” he said.

It was, no doubt, cathartic for McConnell to unburden himself of four years of pent-up frustration with Trump. Still, as always with McConnell, the point was not therapeutic but political. Interpreting it in any other way underestimates McConnell’s discipline.

Maybe McConnell erred early on by holding his tongue about Trump; he knew Trump was a snake when he took him in. Maybe his acquit-first, indict-later strategy will turn out to be too clever by half — if you’re going to strike at Trump, you need to remember that he never forgets a grudge. But you don’t have to be McConnell to know that an attacked Trump is certain to counterpunch. The only surprise was that Trump accurately deployed the word “dour” to describe the minority leader.

McConnell’s speech was in part performative, demonstrating a break with Trump for the party’s establishment donors, and in part a new chapter in McConnell’s “long game,” this time to diminish Trump’s hold on the party.

What explains the differing approaches? The two lawmakers start with different relationships with Trump. McConnell endured Trump as a means to his political and ideological ends. McCarthy embraced Trump early on, stood by him through the “Access Hollywood” tape as others (notably then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan) bailed, and stayed close throughout his presidency.

But even more, McConnell and McCarthy are managing different internal dynamics. House Republicans are far Trumpier than their Senate colleagues; McConnell, despite a smattering of dissent, had more leeway within his caucus to take on the former president than McCarthy did, even if he were so inclined. Most significantly, they operate on different electoral timelines and are playing on different political chessboards.

McConnell’s board is composed of the 34 Senate seats that are up in 2022, but, in reality, its squares number around six: those seats being vacated by retiring Sens. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, and perhaps Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, along with the seats for expiring terms won by Democrats in Georgia (Raphael G. Warnock) and Arizona (Mark Kelly) in 2020. A Trump-like candidate stands little chance in most if not all of these states — meaning that McConnell’s goal is to prevent extremists from winning GOP primaries.

McConnell’s nightmare is tea party 2.0, a replay of 2010 and 2012. Republicans gained seats in those years but found that a majority eluded them, thanks to a few extremist candidates who won primaries. McConnell can’t regain the majority with the Trumpian version of these candidates in 2022.

In the House, where the Democratic majority has been whittled to just 10 seats, nailing down the Trump base remains job one in any seat that McCarthy could hope to pick up. And for McCarthy, it’s probably 2022 or bust; if he isn’t in the speaker’s chair in 2023, he’ll likely never get the gavel.

So, who is correct — as a matter of political tactics, not moral rectitude — McCarthy or McConnell? My guess is that both have chosen the smart political course, given their differing imperatives.

In the aftermath of Jan. 6, in the wake of what McConnell described as Trump’s “unconscionable behavior,” you might have hoped for something stronger than resistance-lite. But with majorities so tantalizingly within reach, and with Trump so determined to punish anyone who dares to defy him, that’s the maximum available from what passes for the country’s Republican leaders.

Read more: Alyssa Rosenberg: he Trump Show’s been canceled. Who will be America’s next main character? Fareed Zakaria: Mainstream Republicans have tolerated extremism for years. Can they finally control it? David Byler: Republicans now enjoy unmatched power in the states. It was a 40-year effort. Jennifer Rubin: Mitch McConnell got exactly what he deserved Michael Gerson: Kevin McCarthy is now our most disgraceful political leader

Source: WP