When the news broke that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be stepping down as Republican Leader in the Senate, I was thrilled. He’s basically the Joe Biden of the Senate, an octogenarian who hasn’t gotten the memo that he’s way past his prime and that it’s time for him to leave.
His recent freezes have certainly made it clear that he is not well. While McConnell isn’t retiring from the Senate, his departure from leadership will hopefully give way to some fresh, new blood who can lead the Senate GOP with a united conservative vision for years to come. Whether that happens or not, I can’t say, but I dare to dream.
In any case, many conservatives aren’t shy about how happy they are at McConnell stepping down because they’ve had nothing good to say about him since he and Donald Trump had their falling out. I similarly found myself loathing the man when he called the Capitol riot a “violent insurrection.”
“Let me give you my view of what happened on January 6,” he said back in 2022. “We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”
No. That’s not what it was.
But I’m not here to trash McConnell. Now that he’s leaving leadership, I feel it’s necessary to point out that for all of his faults, we do owe him a lot. When Trump was in office, he and McConnell worked hand-in-hand to confirm a record number of conservative judges to the judiciary, successfully reshaping the judiciary.
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Of course, we also owe him for the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Even in the face of tremendous criticism, he stood his ground. After the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia, it was McConnell who saved us from Barack Obama’s third Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland.
It took a lot of courage and resolve to keep Scalia’s seat vacant throughout 2016, and we should be grateful that he did. The Obama administration pitched Garland as a centrist, yet his time as Attorney General has proven that he's just another radical leftist. I’m glad he doesn’t have a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court.
Blocking Garland wasn’t the only bold move McConnell took. In 2020, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed, he helped get Justice Amy Coney Barrett confirmed at a time when there was significant pressure to wait until after the next inauguration. McConnell didn’t budge.
So consider this: if Mitch McConnell hadn't taken the bold steps he did, our current Supreme Court landscape would be vastly different. Instead of the solid 6-3 conservative majority, we would be dealing with a slim 5-4 liberal majority. Regardless of McConnell's other shortcomings, we must give credit where it is due.
When you think about how often in this Congress we have seen Republicans who have had a wavering commitment to conservative ideals under pressure, McConnell stood firm when it mattered most. His steadfastness played a crucial role in shaping the composition of the Supreme Court as we know it today.
