The McConnell Era Has Been Terrible for American Politics: New at Reason

We tend to think of political eras in terms of presidents: The 1980s remind us of Ronald Reagan, not Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. The same is true of the 1990s and Bill Clinton, the post-9/11 era and George W. Bush, the years after the financial collapse and Barack Obama. Now, it is assumed, we are in the era of Donald Trump.

But are we? Trump is certainly the most visible elected leader in our national political life. But with his inescapably controversial persona serving as the starkest partisan dividing line in our polarized age, he is, perhaps more than any other modern president, also a figurehead—a president-in-name-only, elected to sit in the Oval Office and tweet into the abyss, which may or may not tweet back.

Meanwhile, the real work of legislating and governing is done by others—in particular, by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, writes Peter Suderman.

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