For McConnell, politics is about accruing political power for the sole purpose of accruing more
At the New York Review of Books Daily, Michael A. Cohen pens Mitch McConnell, Republican Nihilist.
But if there is one defining characteristic of McConnells more than three decades in national politics, it is the prizing of political expediency over integrity, ideology, and any other impulse that should define public service in a representative democracy. For McConnell, as for the president whom he has repeatedly enabled, winning is the only thing that matters. All other considerations are secondary to that goal.
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Indeed, as alarming as Brownings comparison might seem, it doesnt quite do justice to the malign impact that Mitch McConnell has had on modern American politics. No politician has done more to weaken American democracy and undermine the nations most basic norms than McConnell. Nor is any politician more responsible for Trumps rise to power. All of it has been in pursuit of the narrowest, most parochial goals.
What separates McConnell from other destructive political actors, such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his fellow congressional Republican revolutionaries, or President George W. Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, is that McConnells political actions are unmoored from ideology and policy. For McConnell, politics is fundamentally about accruing political power for the sole purpose of accruing more political power.
https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/michael-a-cohen/