Why McConnell doesn’t matter when it comes to Trump and the Republican Party

McConnell has become the latest former Trump ally to feel the wrath of the ex-president, whose list of friends within the Republican Party continues to shrink. Sean O’Grady explains what this means for any future political ambitions

McConnell is no one’s first choice for the 2024 nomination. But Trump still has a shot (AFP via Getty Images)

Just for a change, you might say, Donald Trump has chosen to tell an old-fashioned truth about a political opponent. The former president says that his Republican “colleague” (loosely) Mitch McConnell is a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack”, which is about as near to scientific fact as politics gets. Of course, McConnell might well be a laugh-a-minute privately, a grinning fun-bunny back at home, a larger than life character who lights up a room every time he walks in; but in his monotonic public outings, not so much.

To be fair to the Senate Republican leader, he doesn’t really pretend to be anything other than a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack. He has no designs on the White House, and he makes Mike Pence seem a magnetic personality. Senator McConnell, unlike ex-president Trump, is at home in his own rumpled skin.

Evidently, too, McConnell’s recent devastating condemnation of Trump’s conduct has needled the notoriously thin-skinned former president. If McConnell thought that voting to acquit Trump regardless would endear him to Trump, he was mistaken. McConnell’s attempt to reconcile the mainstream Republican establishment with Trump’s rebellious base failed miserably. The blatant attempt to have it both ways has done him no good. McConnell knew he probably had the chance to end Trump’s ascendency and another assault on the White House in four years, and he refused to take the opportunity. He got no gratitude from Trump, predictably. Apart from the personal abuse, Trump warns McConnell and the whole Republican Party that if they “stay with him they will not win again”.

Well, with a face like a cushion and a powerful narcoleptic effect on any audience, McConnell is no one’s first choice for the 2024 nomination. But Trump is. Like it or not, Republicans would nominate him now for another tilt at the White House in 2024. In a recent survey Trump won 53 per cent support in a poll of Republicans, against 12 per cent for the former vice president Mike Pence, 6 per cent for Senator Ted Cruz, and 1 per cent for Senator Josh Hawley, another Trump loyalist. Remarkably, Don Junior, who lacks even his father’s debatable virtues, garnered 6 per cent of the vote. Needless to say, McConnell was not featured in the beauty parade.

Arguably, 53 per cent support for a recently (involuntarily) retired president is quite modest, even though he towers over any remote rival. Trump seems to have plenty of energy, not to say anger, and he likes to have the last word and the last laugh – as he says, he finds losing difficult. The Biden administration may turn into a disaster, and a repentant nation may beg Trump to come back and make America great again. However, four years is a long time, and much can change. Trump’s influence may start to fade, as attention focuses on the new president and his team. Trump, stable genius as he says he is, is not immune to the effects of ageing. He might try to run as a third party Maga insurgent, if he feels the Republicans no longer want him – but he would not win. It may be that he will in due course settle for the role of kingmaker. Beyond the members of his family, it is hard to see him endorsing anyone to carry on his crusade, because dynasty is so important to him, and he regards the rest of the political world just as he does McConnell, as boring dumbasses. Senators Cruz and Hawley had better start smiling.