Eric Boehlert: McConnell plays the press like a fiddle

https://pressrun.media/p/mcconnell-plays-the-press-like-a

McConnell plays the press like a fiddle
There is no GOP “reckoning”
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago

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Basically, McConnell was showered with lots of press coverage that depicted him as bravely standing up to Trump and possibly instigating a full-on GOP revolt, when in fact McConnell is doing nothing of substance to advance the impeachment cause.

This story is more about backroom jockeying within the GOP, than it is about the party trying to defend the country from a sociopath president. Republicans have shown zero urgency in terms of holding an impeachment vote on Trump. Yet news outlets scramble to paint a picture of a fractured party deeply disturbed by Trump, who has, "brought the Republican Party close to a breaking point," the Times announced last week.

There is no breaking point.

This is all part of a four-year Beltway media obsession with announcing the Republican Party is finally cutting ties with Trump— usually following an especially erratic and dangerous bout of behavior from him — and that the moment of "reckoning" has arrived. But it never does. The press has dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and resources over the years to advance the idea that Republicans leaders can't sleep at night because they’re so troubled by Trump's actions. This allows journalists to depict today's GOP as mainstream and normal. If key GOP players are despairing over Trump, that means the Republican Party operates within the confines of established American politics. But they're not, and they don't.

The GOP stampede towards the Trump exits remains a mirage because Trump accurately reflects where the party is today: Xenophobic, vulgar, unethical, and uninterested in telling the truth.

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The idea that a dozen-plus Republican senators will hand deliver an impeachment conviction to Democrats just as Biden settles into the Oval Office makes no sense. Since McConnell hasn't said one word on where he stands on impeachment (only his aides have floated ideas), he can easily rally Republicans against it during the Senate trial, likely arguing the move is "divisive."

One week after an insurrectionist mob breached the Capitol, the Republican Party remains where it’s been for the last four years — refusing to stand up to Trump’s criminality. No matter what the McConnell spin is.