Did Mitch McConnell realize the monster of Trumpism would come for him in the end?

In his first interview since the January 6 insurrection, Trump spoke about Rush Limbaugh’s death and made veiled allusions to Republicans who didn’t support him enough. Just a day after his screed against McConnell, it was clear who he was talking about

In his first interview since January 6 insurrection, Trump appeared on Fox News this afternoon and repeated the insidious Big Lie while eulogizing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. “Rush felt very early that we were gonna win,” he said, adding that Limbaugh had agreed with him that the 2020 election had been stolen and sympathized with the “anger” of rioters. 

“You would have had riots going all over the place if that happened to a Democrat,” Trump continued. “We don’t have the same support at certain levels of the Republican system.”

This comes after the former president’s angry screed against Mitch McConnell yesterday, despite McConnell’s acquittal vote during the Senate impeachment trial. “My only regret is that McConnell ‘begged’ for my strong support and endorsement before the great people of Kentucky in the 2020 election, and I gave it to him,” Trump wrote then, and continued on to refer to the Senator from Kentucky as an “unsmiling political hack”.

This all suggests that the combustible Trump would not have been able to keep himself quiet over the course of a lengthy impeachment trial. The likelihood of him incriminating himself was significant and increased the likelihood of conviction.

Did McConnell recognize that the monster of Trumpism would ultimately set its sights on destroying him? The former Majority Leader’s weeks-long refusal to acknowledge President-elect Biden and willingness to humor Trump’s frivolous lawsuits were maybe the worst strategic calculation of his political career. The result undermined American democracy and the Biden transition while precipitating a domestic terrorist attack. McConnell lost Georgia and his GOP majority — and now Trump is waging an open war against him.

Despite his posturing and speechifying, McConnell’s political psychology — effectively Stockholm syndrome — is no different from any of the others who voted to acquit. The MAGA cult intimidates him. Conviction of the ex-president would also besmirch the entirety of his court-packing and the reputations of new judges. McConnell’s failure to convict Trump and bar him from future office demonstrates that their legacies are inescapably intertwined, and his unwillingness to banish him from public life forever makes him a more likely Republican candidate for president in 2024.

There was a different path for McConnell. As the historical bipartisan and majority conviction vote reflected, the highly effective Impeachment Managers persuaded several Republican Senators, including one recently elected on the 2020 ballot with Trump and another up for re-election in 2022. It’s quite possible that, had the Democrats convened an impeachment vote directly following the insurrection and subsequent election certification — in the next morning hours of January 7 — they would have won more than 10 Republican votes and created more pressure for McConnell to launch a trial instantly.

Momentum in politics, like sports, is everything, and when you kill it, you are virtually guaranteed your demise. That’s why it’s strange that Democrats concluded their impeachment trial abruptly rather than advance to the usual legal proceedings of sworn testimony and witnesses.

Despite the fact that they believed nothing would change enough Republican votes to reach the two-thirds supermajority requirement for conviction, impeachment remained the most appropriate jurisdiction to punish Trump for his incitement of the Capitol insurrection, and had there been even a single Republican prosecuting the case for conviction alongside Democrats, it could have made inroads.

It is unknown if Speaker Pelosi offered Congresswoman Cheney, Congressman Kinzinger, or any of the other eight impeachment voters the opportunity to serve as House Impeachment Managers. If she did and they declined, then it’s a moot point. But it’s entirely plausible that no olive branch was extended, and that would have been a mistake.

In concert with the ongoing investigations in Georgia and New York, a January 6 commission must keep this pursuit of justice alive, in the face of what is likely to be future incendiary rhetoric and conduct by the former president.

Whether to avoid political backlash from an exhausted public or to give the Biden administration a fresh beginning, the Democratic leadership closed an entire apparatus designed to prove Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors. The necessity of this commission is the present quandary for a country that has refused to hold accountable bad actors over the past two decades.

From terrorist attacks to economic crises, there has been little success from such bodies that were intended to provide a measure of accountability for the most ruinous calamines in recent American history. What happened to the intelligence services that failed to protect us from September 11th and then shielded us from the full story of those who aided and abetted the hijackers? What about the bankers who recklessly enabled the Great Recession and then escaped with golden parachutes and bailouts? And now the unmistakable neglect of a pandemic and outright sedition — both attacks on fellow Americans by the disgraced former president.

This is regrettable for the long-term prospects of American democracy. Its resilience relies on adherence to the rule of law from one generation to the next, and for four years that utterly vanished. Anti-democratic behavior, history tells us, doesn’t just rehabilitate on its own. Devolving norms become new realities.

It will be vitally important for Republican conscientious objectors to Trumpism to be front-and-center of a January 6 commission. Because they represent the throngs of Americans across both political parties who want to restore democracy, and a public that viewed Trump’s conviction and disqualification from holding future office as essential. We are yet still searching for accountability.