Obstruction, Money, Courts and Trump: How Mitch McConnell Changed American Politics

In the days since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would step down from his role leading Senate Republicans, evaluations of his tenure haveoften deployed a word McConnell loves to use to describe himself: “institutionalist.”

“I love the Senate,” McConnell said Wednesday during a speech on the Senate floor. “It has been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there were any with any more admiration for the Senate.”

To describe McConnell as an institutionalist, however, is to give him an incredibly short shrift. No single man has done more to shape modern American politics, and the modern Senate, than McConnell. He helped create the era of big-money politics; shaped the Supreme Court’s archconservative majority; and ratcheted up Senate obstruction to new levels. All of those came together to define his relationship with former President Donald Trump, the man who would ultimately take over the GOP McConnell built.

McConnell’s disdain for Trump — and for the business mogul’s isolationist and protectionist policies — has been obvious at times, but he continued to justify working with him to achieve broader conservative goals, even as Trump brought American democracy to the brink. He rarely backed up his tough talk about opposing Trump with hard actions, and is now stepping aside as Trump is poised to seize control of the GOP yet again.

McConnell’s defenders have long portrayed him as holding up the grandest traditions of the upper chamber. But even his longstanding opposition to weakening the filibuster could not stand once it got in the way of an