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Regardless of the naked shamelessness of many of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s actions, it is often difficult to suss out a clear motivation. Does it, as Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, “ [have] more to do with the mindless one-upmanship of our tribal partisanship?”  Or is it his intention to secure a firm grip on political power for the Republican Party in a future where it will be challenged by a more diverse, progressive-minded population? Two years ago, Milbank termed McConnell the man who “broke America”: “No man has done more in recent years to undermine the functioning of U.S. government”, he wrote. “His has been the epitome of unprincipled leadership, the triumph of tactics in service of short-term power.”

Whatever his reasons, McConnell has shown a patent disdain for majority rule, a foundation of democratic government. When Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008 with almost 53% of the popular vote and 365 votes in the Electoral College, McConnell made it his stated aim that the first black President be a “one-term President”. He failed at this as Obama, even as his Administration battled the headwinds of the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse, garnered 51% of the popular vote and 352 Electoral votes in the 2012 election. Nonetheless, McConnell, as Minority Leader and then, following the GOP’s capture of the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, as Majority Leader, continued on a path of obstruction. Under his leadership, Senate Republicans blocked 79 of Obama’s nominees to the Federal judiciary and other offices. In the entire prior history until then, only 68 nominees had been blocked. His incessant use of the filibuster and other Senate procedures so slowed the workings of the chamber that the Democratic majority found it difficult to pass much of their legislative agenda. And McConnell, committed to denying Obama and the Democrats any hint of legislative victory, eschewed bipartisan approaches. His most egregious maneuver during Obama’s second term was denying a vote to confirm the President’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill the Supreme Court vacancy following the death of Antonin Scalia. The seat remained open for over a year until newly-elected Republican President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch. By that time, McConnell had engineered a change to Senate rules allowing 51 votes to end a filibuster of a nominee to the Supreme Court and move to a floor vote.*       

These actions seem to be of a piece with the Republican strategy to keep a grip on the national government even as demographic change threatens to banish them into the wilderness of permanent minority status. Yet, it may be more accurate to view McConnell’s actions as those of a self-seeking politician, a cynical wielder of power. He is not particularly ideological. He is responsive to his donors who include major players in the energy and finance sectors. He avoids bipartisan approaches to legislation as much as possible to prevent the Democrats from making any claim of a victory.                                

Look no further than McConnell’s adaptation to the Trump Presidency to understand his motivation to retain power. The consummate political operator, McConnell had learned to deal with the erratic and unfocused President. As Glenn Thrush described the two men recently in the New York Times, “the obvious differences between Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell obscure equally obvious similarities. Both are obsessed with winning; both are transactional, both have a highly attuned sense of self-preservation, both are obsessed with getting re-elected.”

Recent incidents in his career stand-out as avatars of McConnell’s approach to politics. Two of the stories involve Russia. In September 2016, when the intelligence community had concluded the Russians were actively intruding in the Presidential campaign to aid Trump, President Obama decided the best course was a bipartisan announcement by the White House and Congressional leaders to alert the public to the threat. McConnell balked at signing on. Obama, wanting to avoid appearing partisan, chose to avoid issuing a warning without Republican buy-in. McConnell has never made clear his reasons for spurning the approach, though he did express skepticism about the accuracy  of the intelligence.

Earlier this year, the Treasury Department removed the giant Russian aluminum company Rusal from its sanction list after oligarch Oleg Deripaska, an ally of Vladimir Putin, agreed to reduce his majority ownership stake in the company to below 50%. Subsequent to the lifting of the sanctions, Rusal entered into an agreement with several US companies to invest $200 million in a new aluminum plant in Kentucky, McConnell’s home state. Rusal will have a 40% stake in the joint venture. McConnell had advocated for the lifting of the sanctions. Deripaska remains under sanction for his role in Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin pointed out that, under the arrangement, not only would Deripaska not receive dividends from his company’s shares, but his children would also be denied financial benefit. Mnuchin failed to mention that Treasury agreed to a transfer of $78 million worth of company stock to a trust controlled by Deripaska’s children. It is as if McConnell was welcoming the fox into the hen house.

Perhaps we should not be surprised at McConnell’s welcoming attitude towards Russians. Last month, he repeatedly blocked a vote on a bipartisan resolution to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report to the public. A similar resolution passed the House. 420-0.

A majority of voters in this country find Donald Trump morally and ethically abhorrent. They believe his disdain for the rule of the law and the norms of our democratic society are a threat to the Republic. Yet, based on the record, I would argue that it is the taciturn Mitch McConnell and not the bombastic Donald Trump who represents the true peril. It is McConnell who made the Senate ancillary to authoritarian-bent Executive, forfeiting its role as part of a co-equal branch of government.

It is his greatest sin.

*Filibuster” refers to the Senate practice of allowing unlimited debate before an issue moves to a floor vote. To end debate and proceed to a vote, the Senate must pass a motion of “cloture”. By Senate rule, three-fifths of the Senators (60) are required to approve cloture. At the beginning of the 2013 session, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, frustrated by the Republican unprecedented filibustering of Obama’s judicial nominees, engineered a change in the rules to allow a simple majority (51 votes) to invoke cloture for all nominees except Supreme Court justices. At the beginning of Donald Trump’s term, McConnell extended the simple majority rules to Supreme Court nominees as well. The 60-vote supermajority threshold still holds for ordinary legislation.