End of the time for McConnell

 

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post breaks down why the current nutcases in the Republican Party don't like Senator Mitch McConnell much anymore.

2 reasons Republicans are done with McConnell

"Why don’t the Republican rank-and-file have more affection for someone who has done so much for their party? Because in today’s GOP, opposing the party “establishment” is de rigueur — and no one is more establishment than McConnell."

"That was true a decade ago, but it’s even more true today. Trump himself pours a never-ending stream of vitriol on McConnell, who never worked too hard to pretend that he thought highly of Trump as a person or a politician. Immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, McConnell put the blame on the former president. He also lamented the Republican Party’s “candidate quality” problem in 2022, which everyone understood to be code for “We’ve nominated too many Trump-worshiping cranks." He was right on both counts."

"But McConnell’s biggest problem might be that he hasn’t made Biden’s life miserable. Instead, Biden got a great deal of legislation passed in his first two years, some of it bipartisan, and has done a good job filling the judiciary with liberal judges."

"While there has never been a more committed partisan than McConnell, he’s capable of taking a long view, which sometimes means pursuing something other than maximal short-term chaos. He might allow a budget agreement or a bipartisan bill on something such as infrastructure to defuse the perception that his party is extreme and irresponsible, which the MAGA wing will see only as a betrayal. In a party gripped by lunatic conspiracy theories and culture war mania, few see McConnell as the vanguard of opposition to the president."

So that's why.  He's out of step with the times.

And also, these times are really weird.