Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is stepping down as party leader at the end of this year, which means the bid to replace America’s least popular politician is off to the races.
On Wednesday, Kentucky’s senior senator announced plans to abdicate his post as head of the Senate GOP in November but stopped short of resigning from office. “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said, after having spent nearly 40 years in Congress getting rich from American taxpayers.
While McConnell’s departure from leadership is a welcome development (that should come a lot sooner), the battle to replace America’s longest-serving Senate party leader will be crucial to the Senate GOP’s direction going forward. For Senate Republicans, that means finding a replacement who will adhere to the wishes of their voters and place American interests first.
Part of what makes McConnell so deeply unpopular among GOP voters is his willingness to place foreign interests above American ones. Look no further than the Senate’s recent border boondoggle, in which McConnell and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., schemed behind closed doors with Democrats to produce a bill that gifted $60 billion to Ukraine and effectively enshrined President Biden’s border invasion into law.
While backlash from Republican voters and the caucus’ more conservative senators ultimately killed the proposal, the finished product proved McConnell never had any interest in securing America’s southern border. The only thing that matters to him and Senate GOP leadership is bankrolling Ukraine’s forever war against Russia.
This sentiment was further confirmed after the bill’s defeat, in which McConnell and Senate leadership rammed through a $95 billion foreign spending package that included (mostly) funding for Ukraine and zero provisions addressing America’s ongoing border invasion. Of course, the Kentucky Republican had help pushing the measure across the finish line. Despite objections from numerous GOP senators, the bill passed 70-29, with 22 Republicans voting “yea.”
Among those who supported its passage are GOP Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas. Both are viewed as contenders to replace McConnell as party leader in the Senate.
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Contrary to McConnell’s belief that dumping taxpayer dollars into Ukraine is the “single most important event going on in the world,” Biden’s border invasion is overwhelming communities across the country and costing American lives. Just ask the parents of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old University of Georgia nursing student who was reportedly murdered by an illegal alien from Venezuela last weekend while out on a jog; the 14-year-old girl allegedly raped by a different Venezuelan illegal in Virginia last week; or the parents of the two-year-old who was allegedly killed by an El Salvadorian illegal in Maryland earlier this month; or the many other victims who have suffered from illegal alien crimes.
Becoming an effective opposition party requires the Senate GOP to elect a fresh conservative leader who places American interests first. Replacing McConnell with a Republican of the same low-T caliber who puts Ukraine’s needs above America’s will do nothing but ensure the Senate GOP will continue to lose at every turn.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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