What Mitch McConnell knows about January 6

For a party that claims it wants to move on, the Republicans are doing a remarkable job of turning the national spotlight back onto one of the worst days in their history.

Last week, the GOP returned to its circular firing squad, issuing a statement that censured Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, the only two Republicans serving on the House January 6 Committee. At the same time, it suggested that the actions of rioters who stormed into the Capitol constituted “legitimate political discourse.”

Such a statement from a national political party is unusual. Almost as unusual as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell issuing a rebuke of his own party apparatus. The ebb and flow of McConnell’s attitude toward Donald Trump, January 6, and the pernicious lies about the legitimacy of the 2020 election have confused his critics and flummoxed those who wish the senior senator from Kentucky had done more.

Make no mistake, McConnell is a political animal. He supported his party’s candidate in 2016. And after Trump won the White House, he devoted most of his floor time to confirming Trump’s nominees to the judiciary. His wife served in the president’s cabinet. And in 2020, he continued to support Trump.

But then Trump lost the White House. His grievance campaign in the lead-up to January 6 cost McConnell the Senate. And his mob profaned the Senate chamber.

Besides being a political animal, McConnell is also an institutionalist. The Senate is his territory. After issuing a repudiation of the attempt to overturn the election, there was some speculation that he might even be angry enough to vote to impeach the president he’d previously helped acquit. His wife Elaine Chao’s swift resignation on January 7 seemed another indicator that McConnell was ready to break with Trump entirely.

It wasn’t to be. McConnell quickly acquitted Trump, determining that the Senate could not impeach a president who was no longer in office. Yet that didn’t stop him from squarely placing “moral and practical blame” for the riot at Trump’s feet. His blistering speech was perhaps even more confusing than his decision to acquit. Why use such strong language but fail to back it up with action?

Similarly, McConnell blocked the bipartisan independent commission proposed by Representatives Bennie Thompson and John Katko, which would have reported on the events leading up to, and the failures that characterized Capitol security on, January 6.

For someone convinced of Trump’s guilt, this should have been a no-brainer. But McConnell’s calculus suggests he was unwilling to allow an investigation — one destined to become a political cudgel — that would focus on his party’s obvious failings. After all, why investigate what Americans saw with their own eyes, on live TV?

What they saw was a lynch mob in its infancy, chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” They saw erstwhile “law and order” conservatives bludgeoning members of the Capitol Police. They heard Donald Trump’s urging them to “fight,” lest they lose their country, and members of Congress joining him onstage before taking shelter from the mob that was incited.

Somehow the RNC thought America would forget. But Leader McConnell didn’t. The man whose parliamentary knowledge has forever shaped American history and Senate procedure is not about to take another one for Team Trump, especially the surrogates who played sherpa to such an inept statement and censure.

That statement intentionally muddied the lines between First Amendment-protected activity and crimes like disrupting an official government proceeding, trespass, and assault. Earlier drafts that have leaked went so far as to eject Kinzinger and Cheney from the party.

The political wisdom is that national bodies stay out of internecine fights and focus instead on keeping the tent big enough to hold a majority. Indeed, the reason House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stopped supporting Cheney in her position as chair of the House Republican Conference was ostensibly so the conference could focus on winning back the House, rather than play defense every time Cheney spoke the truth about the 2020 election and the former president’s role in as instigator-in-chief on January 6.

McConnell’s uncharacteristic move to buck the party signals how damaging this statement really is. Politically, blunders like this could cost Republicans the midterm elections, which historically should favor the party out of power. An uneven economic recovery, Covid fatigue, and record high inflation have Democrats playing defense. Unforced political errors like this are the definition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Institutionally, the Grand Old Party is showing strain from the prolonged tug-of-war between Trump’s populists and the remnants of conservative elites like McConnell. The intellectual foundations of a party that prided itself on federalism and small government need buttressing.

Decoding McConnell’s intentions and motives should raise alarm bells. If the Cheneys, Kinzingers, and McConnells in the party are unsuccessful, if the GOP cannot expunge the demon of January 6, they will cede the republic to the Democrats, who, by default, will look like the only adults in the room.