Your grandfather’s GOP is just about completely gone

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Sen. Mitch McConnell knows where the Republican Party is headed, and he also knows it’s not a place where he should be a leader.

”Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Wednesday, announcing he will step aside as party leader after the election in November. “I have many faults – misunderstanding politics is not one of them.”

He understands, therefore, that isolationism and nationalism, driven by former President Donald Trump, is quickly becoming Republican orthodoxy. It’s not something McConnell agrees with.

“I’m unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world,” he said in the speech.

McConnell’s Senate term does not end until January 2027,and he plans to serve it out – just not as the top Republican in the Senate. He could, for instance, take over the powerful appropriations committee.

But his decision to leave his top leadership post has been the subject of speculation for some time in Washington as frustration with McConnell’s old-school views clashed with MAGA-aligned newcomers.

Markers of the party’s rapid evolution are everywhere in recent years

Trump’s disregard for Sen. John McCain, before McCain’s death. The isolation Sen. Mitt Romney felt in the chamber after voting to impeach Trump. It’s almost hard to remember that McCain and Romney were the party’s presidential candidates in the two elections before Trump took over.

While McConnell manipulated Trump’s term to achieve his priorities – notably, packing the federal court system