Notable Republican leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California) are full of self-loathing for continually sucking up to Trump and they’re in good company: Most of us hate them too.
These two catered to former President Donald Trump’s every whim and did little during his second impeachment. They weren’t up to much either when that Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol turned deadly. McCarthy even voiced opposition [1] to the formation of the Select Committee [2] established to investigate the insurrection at the Capitol. That effectively scuppered much GOP support of the committee. He even went so far as to push the new committee to investigate Black Lives Matter (oh c’mon!) and other groups.
As for McConnell, sure he did that speech, [3] but steadfastly opposed [4] the formation of the Jan. 6 committee for months, only recently [5] seeming to support it.
But McCarthy and McConnell are, at least according to one conservative columnist for The Bulwark, [6] kicking themselves.
Well good. I hope so.
“Here in the bad, red place, hardly anyone gets along. Especially after January 6th. Why? Consider this a simple question: Whom does Donald Trump actually like? In the old days, all a Republican had to do to make Trump happy was kiss his ass with some cheap flattery,” writes conservative strategist Amanda Carpenter. [7] “Say he’s the biggest, strongest, handsomest, smartest, richest dude in history and that would be enough. But today, being on Trump’s good side requires accepting his 2020 election lie and endorsing his various schemes to overturn the results.”
Carpenter noted that Trump’s former lapdog Mike Pence, who steadfastly stood by Trump over the years is now the object of scorn for the MAGA crowd because he dared to refuse to overturn the certification of Joe Biden as president. Former Attorney General William Barr, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.), and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have similarly fallen from grace.
Carpenter reports Barr, Kemp, and Raffensperger found themselves on Trump’s sh*tlist for a number of notable infractions (in Trump’s mind anyway). “After Attorney General William Barr told a reporter there was no widespread fraud in the election, Trump fumed at him: ‘You must really hate Trump.”
“Similarly, Georgia governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger lost any goodwill they might have felt from teh former president when they informed him they could not find enough votes for him to win that state. Ditto Arizona Governor Doug Ducey.”
But whatever anyone thinks about Kemp, Raffensperger, Barr, and Ducey, they were stating facts whether Trump liked it or not. McConnell and McCarthy [8] remained Trump sycophants until nearly the bitter end. So if these two hate themselves now, all I can say is that hate is well-deserved.