A brand new United States Congress convenes in Washington, DC, on January 3. However for the primary time in 18 years, a key Republican chief will now not be on the helm: Senator Mitch McConnell.
Since 2007, McConnell has served as head of the Republican Occasion within the Senate, steering members of his caucus by 4 completely different presidencies and numerous legislative hurdles.
Consultants say his tenure because the Senate’s longest-serving get together chief will finally be remembered as an inflexion level for Republicans and Congress as an entire.
Below McConnell, US politics moved away from the back-slappers and consensus-builders of earlier eras. As an alternative, McConnell helped to usher in a interval of norm-breaking, hyper-partisan politics that paved the best way for figures like incoming President Donald Trump, the chief of the Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) motion.
“First and foremost, he extended a trend in minority obstruction in the Senate,” Steven S Smith, professor emeritus of political science at Washington College in St Louis, informed Al Jazeera.
Smith identified that McConnell led a Republican majority for less than six of his 18 years as Senate chief. The remainder of his tenure has been spent mobilising a minority within the 100-seat Senate to disrupt the agenda of the rival Democratic Occasion.
“Second, he will be known for deepening partisan polarisation in the Senate,” Smith stated. “While McConnell is not a conservative or MAGA extremist by today’s standards, he was a deeply partisan leader.”
Regardless of his dedication to the Republican Occasion, some see McConnell as a possible bulwark to figures like Trump, with whom he has clashed previously.
Although he’s stepping down as get together chief, McConnell intends to stay within the Senate for the rest of his six-year time period. However the extent to which McConnell will act as a verify on Trump’s bold second-term agenda stays to be seen.
“I’d be very surprised to see him be provocative in a public way. His influence is going underground,” Al Cross, a veteran reporter and columnist who coated McConnell’s tenure, informed Al Jazeera.
Then-President Donald Trump campaigns with Senate Chief Mitch McConnell in Lexington, Kentucky, in November 2019 [Susan Walsh/AP Photo]
‘I usually play the villain’
McConnell has led a protracted and storied profession within the Senate. In 1984, he made his first bid for a seat within the chamber, ousting an incumbent Democrat.
He has remained undefeated ever since. In 2020, he received his seventh straight time period.
His ascent to the highest of the Senate got here with out vital opposition. The 2007 retirement of the earlier Senate Republican chief, Invoice Frist, left the place vacant.
However even from his first days as a Senate chief, McConnell cultivated a repute as a hardliner and obstructionist.
Throughout his first 12 months as Republican chief, The New York Occasions described him as working with “near-robotic efficiency” to smack down Democratic insurance policies, regardless of main a minority within the Senate.
“Mr McConnell and his fellow Republicans are playing such tight defense, blocking nearly every bill proposed by the slim Democratic majority that they are increasingly able to dictate what they want,” reporter David Herszenhorn wrote.
McConnell rapidly embraced his visibility as a partisan warrior, a self-described “grim reaper” for progressive proposals.
One editorial column nicknamed him “Senator No” for his refusal to work throughout the aisle. McConnell himself greeted reporters as soon as by saying, “Darth Vader has arrived.”
“Over the three decades I have been a US Senator, I’ve been the subject of many profiles,” McConnell wrote within the opening traces of his 2016 memoir. “I usually play the villain.”
Smith, the Washington College professor, described McConnell as sparking a “transformation” within the Senate because of his hardline method.
Earlier than McConnell’s management, Smith stated the Senate solely noticed “occasional minority obstruction”. However afterwards, the chamber turned identified in political circles because the “60-vote Senate”.
That nickname is a reference to the 60 votes required to beat a minority obstruction, in any other case generally known as a filibuster.
Below McConnell, Smith defined, “acting on legislation of any importance would face minority obstruction and require 60 votes for cloture”.
Senate Republican Chief Mitch McConnell has been credited by some critics with increasing using ‘minority obstruction’ within the Senate [File: Susan Walsh/AP Photo]
Bending norms
One among McConnell’s most divisive moments got here in 2016, with the loss of life of Supreme Court docket Justice Antonin Scalia.
Usually, when a justice dies, the sitting president is entitled to appoint a substitute. However Scalia’s loss of life got here 11 months earlier than a pivotal presidential election. And the president on the time, Democrat Barack Obama, was nearing the top of his remaining time period.
McConnell made a surprising — and swift — political gamble. Inside hours of Scalia’s loss of life, the Republican chief introduced he would refuse to name a vote to verify Obama’s chosen substitute.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell stated in an announcement.
Left-leaning publications like The Nation decried McConnell’s resolution as an assault on the US Structure. “This refusal exploded norms,” journalist Alec MacGillis wrote within the publication ProPublica.
However McConnell’s gambit shifted the stability of energy on the courtroom for generations to return.
That November, US voters elected Trump — a political newcomer — to his first time period within the White Home, setting the stage for extra shifts in Washington norms.
Trump finally nominated three right-wing justices to the Supreme Court docket, together with one to interchange Scalia. That cemented a conservative super-majority on the bench, anticipated to mould US regulation for generations to return.
Trump later credited McConnell as his “ace in the hole” and “partner”.
“Mitch recognized, as did I, that since judges enjoy life tenure, the impact of judicial nominations can be felt for thirty years or more,” Trump wrote in a ahead to McConnell’s memoir. “Transforming the federal judiciary is the ultimate long game!”
Senate Republican Chief Mitch McConnell led his get together in 2016 to dam the nomination of Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama’s alternative for the Supreme Court docket [J Scott Applewhite/AP Photo]
A Trump rivalry
However within the lead-up to a brand new and emboldened Trump administration in 2025, McConnell has more and more spoken out towards the president-elect and his isolationist “America First” platform.
The 2 Republican leaders have repeatedly butted heads, and their relationship is notably frosty.
Trump has overtly referred to as McConnell an “old crow” and vilified his “China-loving wife” Elaine Chao, a slap at her Asian heritage.
McConnell, in the meantime, has countered along with his personal preventing phrases, implying parallels between Trump and isolationism within the Thirties.
“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II,” McConnell informed the Monetary Occasions in December. “Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.”
Upon vacating his management put up in January, McConnell is anticipated to tackle the function of chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Protection.
In his new place, he’s prone to advocate for strengthening the US army to counter threats from adversaries like Russia, Iran and China.
But at age 82, with well being challenges together with a current fall, specialists say McConnell is unlikely to supply a lot resistance to the incoming Trump administration.
“Since Senator McConnell is out of his leadership position and given his physical frailty, I am not expecting much in the way of sustained opposition from him,” Harvard College political scientist Daniel Ziblatt informed Al Jazeera.
“It is possible he may cast a dissenting vote here or there that might make a difference. But his track record doesn’t leave me holding my breath.”
Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell talks along with his spouse, then-Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, on August 13, 2007 [Ed Reinke/AP Photo]
No higher institutionalist
Nonetheless, Herbert Weisberg, a professor of political science at The Ohio State College, anticipates that McConnell might act as an occasional dissenting voice, notably because the Senate weighs a few of Trump’s controversial nominees for high-level authorities posts.
“He’d normally want to defer to a Republican president on appointees, but he’ll be cautious on the unusual Trump nominees. He might be willing to vote against a few, but not all of them,” Weisberg informed Al Jazeera.
Already, McConnell — a childhood polio survivor — issued a public warning to incoming administration officers to “steer clear of” efforts “to undermine public confidence” in “proven cures”, lest they scuttle their Senate affirmation hearings.
The assertion got here instantly after Trump well being nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr was linked to an effort to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in The New York Occasions.
However a single Republican is unlikely to stall a nomination or piece of laws, as Steven Okun, an analyst on US politics, authorities and commerce, identified.
Republicans maintain a 53-person majority within the incoming Senate. And lots of within the get together are firmly behind Trump’s management.
Assuming a united Democratic opposition, “four Republican senators would be needed to stop anything a future President Trump puts forth to the Senate,” Okun defined.
McConnell, Okun added, is unlikely to tackle the function of dissenter — “only when Donald Trump pursues the most aggressive actions which would run counter to the US national interest”.
In spite of everything, get together loyalty has been a key tenet of McConnell’s management. And specialists like Cross, the journalist, consider McConnell received’t need to miss a chance to make use of the ability of the Senate to form presidential coverage.
“I can’t think of any greater institutionalist than Mitch McConnell,” Cross stated. “He loves the Senate, it’s what he’s aspired to. He doesn’t want to give up its role in advice and consent.”
