McConnell : Trump Friend Or Foe

After All He Gave Trump The Not Guilty Vote On Impeachment He Wanted.

You always want to know that your friend or business associate has your back. Relationships only survive on mutual trust :

• shared agreement and interests in the same set of facts
• mutual feeling of unceasing goodwill toward the other party.

Every person has non-negotiable values. Things they must always insist on and never compromise, if they are to retain their self worth and self respect. Whenever your values and interests differ, a relationship is in jeopardy.

In important moments, it is the actions of an associate, more than his words that demonstrate whether your friend or ally still shares common interest with you. If ever that happens, the relationship itself is the least of your losses.

In the case of former president Trump, he thought that the best thing he needed and could get from McConnell would be a 2nd acquittal at his unprecedented impeachment. McConnell was only too pleased to hand him that get-out-of-jail-free card with one hand. Then, with the other, proverbially plunge the dagger into Trump’s back, as he started off on his victory strut.

You could almost see the smirk on McConnell’s face. Whatever success in government President Donald Trump had was largely due to his staunch ally, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell who pushed Trump’s singular agenda of confirming federal judges, at the expense of multiple pieces of legislation that went to McConnell’s desk to die. He gleefully called himself “The Grim Reaper”.

Outsmarting Trump

Most people know that Mitch McConnell is a shrewd politician. But on the day when he acquitted Trump for the 2nd time, and immediately proceeded to excoriate him for being “practically and morally responsible for the insurrection”, then dangle him in the face of all the prosecuting and litigating wolves all across the country, he proved just how ruthlessly clever he is.

It was his manipulative machinations in the Senate that prevented the impeachment trial from beginning while Trump was in office. Then he claimed he could not convict Trump because he was no longer in office. That diabolical deception was only the first half of his bait and switch.

While Trump gloated in his supposed victory, McConnell invited everyone in every civil and criminal court of the country — everybody but him — to hold Trump accountable for his dastardly deeds while in office.

Donald Trump is obviously not smart enough, and is much too self absorbed to see that McConnell sold him down the river. He thought that the worst thing McConnell could let happen was to let him get convicted by the Senate and be unable to run again. In the current political atmosphere McConnell could pay a high political price for doing the right thing and truly hold Trump accountable.

So in the shrewdest of political moves, McConnell showed he could eat his cake and still have it. He handed Trump the acquittal he wanted. Then brandished the largest of political daggers ever produced for Trump’s heart. And gleefully invited litigants and prosecutors from all over the country to bury such dagger in every crevice and orifice of Trump’s anatomy.

True Motives

It is sometimes hard to face the truth about exactly what your ally’s motives are. But face the truth, you must. Maya Angelou made famous the saying: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”.

It goes without saying that no relationship can continue in a healthy state when the mutual interests that form the basis of the relationship no longer exist. Trump’s only interest was that his Senate Leader would not let him get convicted and barred from running again. The Senate Leader delivered on that desire, giving him what he wanted, then served up something Trump would never have seen coming, even if he were 10 times smarter than his kindergarten level intelligence.

Of course, a solid relationship was never the goal of either of these two men. This was a marriage of strict political convenience. Trump needed McConnell to make him look good. McConnell used Trump to advance his agenda. For their individual reasons both Trump and McConnell despised and disdained each other.

When McConnell spoke on the Senate floor right after he voted to acquit Trump, his subtle disdain of his leader became unabashedly blatant. You could almost see the smirk on his face as he executed his obvious plan to fool Trump into thinking he had won victory at the impeachment. While his scorching remarks pretended to hold Trump accountable for his actions by sounding like one of the impeachment managers.

Trump cannot say McConnell did not deliver what he wanted. And he is too stupid to see how royally he has been outsmarted, betrayed and humiliated. McConnell proceeded to further mock Trump by announcing he would absolutely support Trump if he were the presidential nominee in 2024.

Obviously, McConnell thinks it is time for the Republican party to get rid of Trump, but he wants to “wash his hands” of this matter of Trump’s demise. He knows full well that Trump will most likely never become the nominee. The civil and legal minefields that Trump will have to navigate for the rest of his life will make him at best a broke (and broken) bankrupt former businessman mired in myriad civil litigations. And at worst, a convicted felon who will have prison terms lined up for him waiting to begin immediately after he completes the last one.

In years to come, I predict that “being McConnell-ed” will become a euphemism for being betrayed especially in politics.

McConnell knows that his opinion about Trump is not the most popular idea among Republicans. They have declared themselves “the party of Donald Trump”. Those who have not bent the knee to Trump are being forced out of the party. Though, many thousands have volunteered to change their party affiliation after the January 6th insurrection.

The Real McConnell

McConnell with his shrewd political meanderings has found a way to “eat his cake and still have it”. He is working to help Trump over the cliff while pretending he was but an innocent bystander who had nothing to do with it.

Most of us are able to spot the “McConnell’s” in our lives and avoid them. Of course Trump is too self-absorbed to notice the disloyalty, and too dumb to care about what is really in his best interest.

McConnell has proved himself to be the new “Judas”. The Betrayer in chief of American politics.

In life you do want to have a true friend or ally in your corner, even if it is only for a season. Even Donald Trump deserves better than he got from McConnell.