The Scorched Earth Society

A couple days ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made a speech from the Senate floor that got a lot of attention.  It was his "scorched earth" speech, where he basically said that if Democrats get rid of the filibuster, they don't even begin to understand the hell that would be unleashed when Republicans regain control.  And he he ran off a long laundry list of Republican dream issues that would bring a scorched earth.

As far as malevolent speeches go, it was pretty good, even by Mitch McConnel standards.  And it's definitely worth paying attention to, because there were indeed things in it thought could be concerning..

There are a few "howevers," though, before Democrats get overly horrified by it.  Like --

1.  As much as the far right would dearly love all those horrifying items on the laundry list, 75% of the country is not the far right.  And Democrats can now use this Mitch McConnell Wish List when they campaign against Republicans in the 2022 mid-terms.  And every election after that.  "This is what Republicans will do if you give them the majority."

2.  To pass all these scorched earth bills into law, Republicans actually would have to regain control of the Senate.  But left out is the critical point that they'd also have to regain control of the House, without which none of those Senate-passed bills could ever become law.  AND they'd also need a Republican in the White House.  Otherwise most, if not all of those bills would be vetoed by the Democratic president.  So, while the threat is real...it's just not as easy a threat as McConnell made it sound.

3.  Even if Democrats followed Mitch McConnell's demands and didn't get rid of the filibuster, if Republicans regained control of the Senate, McConnell could still push forward every one of those scorched earth issues if he wanted to.  Some wouldn't be able to pass, but many would -- through a reconciliation bill, or in areas where the filibuster doesn't apply, like approving judges, or by using other Senate rules to the GOP's advantage.  And honestly, after watching Mitch McConnell for the past 12 years, ever since he said that Job One was to block everything President Barack Obama did to make sure he was just a one-term president, (an effort that failed, it's worth noting), and pushed "Repeal and Replace" of the Affordable Care Act (an effort that failed, it's worth noting), who seriously believes that Mr. McConnell wouldn't try to pass it all.  It's his Wish List, for goodness sake.  He told you so!.

4.  When you're going on a rant about how Democrats would be doing something so heinous against the traditions of the Senate, your faux-outrage would have SO much more meaning if you yourself hadn't already smashed to smithereens many of those sacred traditions you're ranting about.  Like blocking a Supreme Court nomination.  And approving a Supreme Court nominee just weeks before an election -- deeply hypocritically contrary to the argument you made to block the earlier nominee.  And approving judges who were listed as "unqualified" by the American Bar Association, always the standard the Senate went by.  And passing a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthy without any Democratic involvement and more.

In fact, after having written this article, I went back to edit it after reading James Carville's comments on MSNBC that address these very points, most notably the first point above, that Democrats should use Mitch McConnell's Wish List against him.  And so I thought they deserved to be included, particularly since they're expressed with such Carvillean panache.  Among other things, he said --

"Well, okay, take it out on us. We'll take your five issues to the polls and we'll go toe to toe, head to head with you. But it was really significant what he said after that. And I don't -- you know, I don't think the country wants to be held hostage by Mitch McConnell. We saw what he did to President Obama, to Merrick Garland. I don't think the Democrats should be afraid of this in the least. I think they should embrace this argument, they should go around and talk about all the things that Mitch McConnell wants to do. He doesn't want to get COVID relief to people. He doesn't want to tax the rich. He doesn't want to do anything about climate. All he wants to do is do this. I think if you do that, you will end up with a much better result than that. I think he was smart to put that on TV and see exactly what he's talking about he's gonna do if you don't give me what I want. So, bring it on. Bring it on, dude. Hook it up."

So...while the threat Mitch McConnell made was serious and problematic, the reality is that this being Mitch McConnell, it's fair to figure he's going to do as many of these worst things anyway, regardless of what Democrats do and how fairly they stick to the sacred traditions of the United States Senate that Mitch McConnell long-since has smashed to dust.

On the other hand, Democrats could do what Mitch McConnell doesn't want, and they could address the filibuster however they think they can accomplish that, and they could pass bills that actually help the American public, and they could win support of the public by showing action on behalf of Americans, and they could possibly increase their majorities in both the Senate and the House.  And keep doing that and holding those majorities for enough years that if and when Republicans finally do win back control of both the House and Senate, and the White House, they'll understand by that point that scorching the earth may not be all that good a policy, after all.