There seems no denying that, the more Donald Trump humiliates Republican men, the more they seem to want to kiss his ass. This has been the most stupefying feature of American politics since 2016.
Senator Ted Cruz infamously put a fetishistic twist on cuckoldry in this regard that is just too perverse for words. Of course, as we saw this week, Trump has so sapped him of his manhood, Cruz has been reduced to bullying Big Bird to feel manly again. And I’m on record suggesting only that famous line from Brokeback Mountain, namely “I wish I knew how to quit you”, explains Senator Lindsey Graham’s antic willingness to be Trump’s butt boy.
But you’d be forgiven for thinking the Republican Party really has become little more than a cult that worships according to Trump’s devices. Because only that explains a seasoned powerbroker like Senator Mitch McConnell seeking Trump’s endorsement, only to have Trump humiliate him like a starstruck congressman.
Here is how The Guardian reported this humiliation on Monday:
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Donald Trump once described Mitch McConnell as his ‘ace in the hole’ and wrote, in a foreword to the Senate Republican leader’s autobiography, that he ‘couldn’t have asked for a better partner’ in Washington.
Except, according to Trump, he didn’t.
Speaking to the Washington Post for a profile of the Senate minority leader published on Monday, Trump said he told McConnell: ‘’Why don’t you write it for me and I’ll put it in, Mitch?’ Because that’s the way life works.’
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Frankly, there’s only one way to get a sense of how truly deceitful and craven this makes McConnell look: Imagine Queen Elizabeth asking Meghan Markle to write the foreword to her autobiography, Meghan telling her to write whatever she thinks makes her look good and she’ll just sign her name to it, and then, after it’s published, Meghan telling the tabloids about their arrangement.
But, truth be told, this humiliation seems fitting comeuppance for a man who has spent his career treating others the way Trump is now treating him. Most notably, he took pride in trying to destroy the presidency of the first Black president of the United States. He highlighted this by using his position as Senate majority leader to deny Barack Obama the opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice; only to then allow Donald Trump to appoint one on the very same basis.
It is also noteworthy that I had cause to publish “McConnell Reminds Us that He Was Mastering Hypocrisy and Shamelessness Long Before Trump,” January 2, 2021.
Still, that McConnell led so many Republicans in acquitting Trump even of attempting to overthrow the US government shall live in infamy. For this memorialized their abject willingness to sacrifice every shred of professional (and personal) integrity just to serve the black hole that constitutes his ambitions. I warned of the consequences this portends in my podcast episode “Online Comments and the Fate of Democracy,” June 12, 2021.
But I cannot overstate the significance of Trump figuring out along the campaign trail way back in 2016 that, the more he humiliates pusillanimous politicians like them, the more beholden they become to him.