Chris Hayes pointed out last night on All In that the "McConnell Doctrine" states that what Mitch McConnell gets away with is what he is willing to do. Whether it's hiding a healthcare bill or obstructing a Supreme Court nomination, Mitch gets away with it because he is willing to go to those lengths to pursue his partisan agenda.
But Chris Hayes gets one thing wrong. Hayes defines the McConnell Doctrine as this:
"In an era of extreme polarization, and weakening institutions, you get away with whatever you are shameless enough to pursue."
Polarization, Chris? That smacks of both siderism to me. This is not a Democratic problem.
The Senate Democrats released this video pointing out McConnell's shameless hypocrisy, that REPUBLICANS both in his chamber and at the voting booth, continue to reward:
And today's Plum Line, discussing the possibility that Trump might fire Bob Mueller, points out that Party over Country is what the Republican Party is:
If Republicans were to state right now that firing Mueller is a red line for them, it would require an acknowledgment that this whole “Trump as naif” narrative is just nonsense — that the problem is not that Trump needs to learn the rules, but rather that he does not believe the rules should apply to him. This acknowledgment would implicitly implicate Republicans, because the spin itself requires pretending that they have not spent the past five months looking the other way while Trump amply demonstrated his contempt for the rules. It requires pretending that they have not actively enabled the serial trampling on rules, norms and constraints — the abuses of power and contempt for the rule of law and our institutional processes — that have characterized Trump’s presidency since the beginning.
Meanwhile, some prominent conservative media voices have now taken up the cause of attacking Mueller and saying that he must go, which, if it escalates, might increase pressure on Republicans to stand by Trump if he removes him. Given all this, is there any reason to be all that sanguine that Republicans would act in the necessary numbers necessary to constrain him if he does go there?
Not if Mitch McConnell has anything to say about it.
