The Democrats Need Their Own Mitch McConnell
A political party’s strength lies in its ability to productively channel its energetic fringe.
Those were the days. Or were they?
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergAny Democrat elected president next year will have to deal with Mitch McConnell. Odds are he will remain Senate majority leader in 2021, and even if he doesn’t, McConnell has proved that he is willing and able to use parliamentary procedure to thwart the will of a Democratic president and Congress.
The only Democrat with a plan for dealing with McConnell is Joe Biden. The question is not so much whether the former vice president’s plan will work — he has already shown he can work with Republicans in general and McConnell in particular — but whether bipartisanship is what the Democratic Party really needs. For Democrats now, as it was for Republicans a decade ago, the need is for someone to contain and channel the energetic fringe of the party.