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Trump trial: McConnell's vote and the Republican dilemma

2021-02-13T21:01:22.718Z


The senator who has symbolized Trump's alliance with the party announces that he will vote to acquit the former president whose excesses cost him the most


Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.TOM BRENNER / Reuters

When Mitch McConnell was asked in the summer of 2017 what it was like to be a Majority Leader in the United States Senate, he replied that it was "a bit like being a cemetery manager."

"Everyone is under you," he explained, "but no one listens to you."

That fine display of Kentucky's black humor, if there is such a thing, takes on all its significance these days when the veteran senator, demoted to minority leader after the November elections, sees power slip through his fingers as He tries to save the party to which he has dedicated his whole life.

McConnell symbolized the alliance that the Viajo Gran Partido sealed with Donald Trump.

He covered his nose and managed to fill the courts with like-minded judges, shielding a conservative social agenda increasingly removed from public opinion against electoral swings.

But Trump and the senator have not spoken, according to

The Washington Post,

since December 15.

On January 6, in the words of one attendee, McConnell was "appalled" at how things had "gotten out of hand."

He explicitly accused Trump of provoking the assault on the Capitol.

He assured that he was satisfied with

Trump's

impeachment

, but later voted twice to end it, considering it unconstitutional.

This Saturday, putting an end to weeks of uncertainty, McConnell announced that he will vote for Trump's acquittal, and acknowledged that his has been a decision "by the minimum."

"Colleagues, as I have said for a long time, this is a vote of conscience," he wrote to his senators.

"Many of you have asked me how I am going to vote, so I thought it was correct to make it known before the final vote," he continues.

McConnell argues that

impeachment

is primarily a tool for impeachment, and that Trump has already been removed by the ballot box.

He acknowledges that he is "concerned" by the argument, made by the accusation, that acquitting Trump would set a precedent of impunity for presidents in the last weeks of his term, but defends that "the Constitution makes it perfectly clear that the criminal conduct of a president she can be prosecuted once she leaves office ”.

"Given these conclusions", ditch, "I will vote for acquittal."

The question is whether the announcement of a condemnatory vote by McConnell would have influenced Republican senators, who have thrown themselves at Trump's lap again, even when he is no longer in the White House or has his Twitter account to point out. the

traitors

.

The Republican decision hides, in many cases, a calculation of power.

Many would like to stand aside and wait for all of this to pass.

The Senate is divided 50-50, which is a Democratic majority for the tiebreaker vote that corresponds to Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Republicans hope to regain the majority in the 2022 legislative elections. This is not the time to confront Trump, who continues to mobilize the rank and file and who half of Republican voters believe should remain the leader.

Ten of the 211 Republican congressmen voted in favor of

impeachment

.

Six of the 50 senators dissociated themselves from the party and voted to continue with the trial in the Senate.

Of these, only two face reelection in 2022. They are historical supporters of a party to the

impeachment

of a president of their color.

But they show that, despite everything, the formation is reluctant to break with a figure that has consummated, in a dramatic and personalistic way, a radicalization that the party had been experiencing since the appearance of the Tea Party at the end of the first decade of this century. .

McConnell this time resigned from persuading some senators over whom he has exercised firm command from 2015 until January 20.

While Trump's excesses cost McConnell the majority, though they have sowed discord in his party, the veteran leader knows how difficult it is for lawmakers to publicly confront Trump when reelection is close, risking being challenged by more Trumpist candidates. in the primaries.

This is not the case with McConnell.

He is 78 years old, easily won his seat again in November and will not face the polls again, if at all, until 2026. But what matters to the senator is not just the majority in 2022, but the future of a party that in 37 years has not won the popular vote in an election more than twice, with two candidates named Bush.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-02-13

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