An opinion columnist for Mitch McConnell’s hometown newspaper has written a pre-obituary outlining the “detestable” senator’s legacy.
Louisville Courier Journal columnist Joseph Gerth explained Wednesday that he wrote about the 84-year-old Kentucky lawmaker while he is still alive so that his column wouldn’t draw the response that followed Lindsey Graham’s death: “How dare you say that about a guy who just died?”
McConnell, who was hospitalized over a month ago for what he said was a fall followed by a case of pneumonia, is “every bit the detestable figure” that Richard Nixon was, Gerth wrote. He will be known primarily for two things: his “manipulation” of the Supreme Court confirmation process and his enabling of Donald Trump.
“First is his cynical and hypocritical manipulation of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process that over a four-year period shifted the court from a center-right body to a far-right body that overturned 60 years of case law on civil rights and nearly a century of law that empowered Congress to check a president’s power,” Gerth began.
McConnell, who supported civil rights in the 1960s but turned away from that fight in later years, had “more guts as a young man than he had as an old man,” the author continued.
Gerth then took McConnell to task for his “hypocritical” blocking of Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in March 2016 after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. McConnell had claimed that the outcome of that year’s presidential election should decide the matter, yet after liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, he swiftly confirmed Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett—just eight days before the election, which Trump lost.
“McConnell’s shenanigans turned what had been a 5-4 conservative majority — with one member being a reliable swing vote — into a solid 6-3 radical conservative court,“ he wrote. ”In the process, McConnell destroyed the court’s credibility with the American people."
McConnell had some positive accomplishments, like increasing the size of the Jefferson Memorial Forest in Louisville, the columnist explained. But those will matter little, since McConnell’s legacy—in addition to the Supreme Court—will be failing to hold Trump to account, he said.
Despite calling Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 insurrection, McConnell had the opportunity to vote to convict him on impeachment charges and—given his sway among his GOP colleagues—prevent him from running for office ever again. But he wilted.
Gerth quoted McConnell’s own words about Trump, according to The Price of Power: “stupid as well as being ill-tempered,” a “despicable human being” and a “narcissist.”
And yet McConnell supported Trump’s 2024 campaign.
“And that is the legacy of Mitch McConnell,” Gerth concluded.
“He ends his career adopting the anti-civil rights positions Barry Goldwater supported, handed to him by a despised and distrusted Supreme Court that he created, but didn’t have an iota of the bravery Goldwater summoned to stand against a criminal and corrupt president.”
“Whew! I’m glad I got that off my chest while he’s still alive.”
McConnell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McConnell’s health has continued to draw questions—even after he released a photograph showing him with his wife, Elaine Chao—in part by how little his staff has told reporters.
Led by longtime aide Terry Carmack, who is set to make $226,000 this year, McConnell’s office has declined to say what Senate work McConnell is doing lately.
