This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Until Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had adroitly maneuvered around Donald Trump's campaign. He gave a perfunctory endorsement and then proceeded at virtually every opportunity to criticize Trump.
In pitching to retain his Republican majority, he assured voters the Senate would continue to act as a check on the president, no matter who got elected. Back in May, McConnell said, "No matter how unusual a personality may be who gets elected to office, there are constraints in this country. You don't get to do anything you want to."
In June, he assured us that Trump wouldn't get to reinvent the GOP. "I don't think we need to reinvent what the Republican Party stands for. Reagan didn't do that. And we, basically, are a right-of-center, America's right-of-center party," McConnell said. "I don't believe Donald Trump will change the Republican Party. I think he is more likely to gravitate in the direction that we have staked out since the Reagan era."
Just last week we heard from "former top McConnell aide, Steven Law, who now runs a super-PAC dedicated to electing Senate Republicans, [who] said, 'I think Sen. McConnell's neutrality gives his caucus maximum flexibility to adopt whatever position on Trump best reflects their own states and their own political situations.'"
The message to wary voters had been: Take a deep breath. If Trump gets elected, we Republicans have things in hand. We'll still be the reliable GOP. Well, not so fast.
On Wednesday, McConnell was singing a different tune when he proclaimed, "We need a new president, Donald Trump, to be the most powerful Republican in America." What?!? To begin with, he's now undercut his members who are staying afloat by saying they do not support him (e.g., Sen. Kelly Ayotte) and those who argue they will restrain him. (Rep. Todd Young in Indiana argues, "I'll be a check and balance against whomever our next president is.")
Trump has frightened Republicans and Democrats alike by asserting bizarre policy positions (rip up treaties, round up 11 million people) and threatening to distort and abuse executive power (e.g., order the military to commit war crimes). The "deal," if you will, that Republicans were offering was that Trump would be constrained both by the Constitution and by fellow Republicans. Now, McConnell confesses Trump is far more powerful than they. It's frightening because it is true.
"McConnell has repeatedly said he will support the nominee of his party for president; that person is Donald Trump," a Republican working to elect down-ticket Republicans offered. "Obviously if Trump wins the presidency, he will be the most powerful Republican in America, subject of course to the powerful checks and balances of our constitutional system of government." Well, McConnell did not mention the latter. Honestly, the "We'll keep him in check" line has been the central excuse for Republicans. If nothing else, McConnell's comment is a confession that the promise to restrain Trump is largely empty. One can argue in McConnell's defense that this doesn't contradict previous statements, but it sure does remind voters at an inopportune time that if Trump becomes president, he'll have many powers beyond the ability of Congress to restrain.
At least we've dispensed with the fiction that a party unwilling to stop Trump before his election would act as a brake if he got to the Oval Office.
McConnell is right in the sense that any president is the most powerful politician in the country. And that's the problem. Once elected, Trump's already humongous ego would know no limits. His ignorance coupled with his authoritarian tendencies would make him even less amenable to reason and persuasion. He would see his election not only as a mandate to abandon scores of conservative ideas (e.g., fiscal discipline, trade, respect for the rule of law) but also as a green light to use his executive powers to settle scores, punish enemies, evade congressional scrutiny and round up millions of people.
McConnell has committed a quintessential Kinsley gaffe. ("A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.") Trump would become the most powerful person in the Free World and the head of a party. The GOP would literally become his party. His pronouncements and positions would be echoed by and defended by the entire GOP apparatus.
That leaves fretful voters to ponder: Shouldn't they make doubly sure Trump never gets to the White House? On the off chance he does, should they make sure there is at least a Democratic Senate?