Mitch McConnell is now chief of Vichy Republicans. History won’t remember them kindly. | Opinion

There are now three kinds of Republican politicians: MAGA Republicans, Harris Republicans and what you could call Vichy Republicans. They all know who and what Donald Trump is; the different camps reflect how each has responded to that knowledge.

Trump is a narcissistic bully who spouts racist lies to keep Americans divided and his followers afraid. At age 78, he is a lifelong fraudster, a serial abuser of women and a convicted criminal. Only by winning back the presidency does he stand a chance of avoiding trial on felony charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.

As president from 2017-2020, Trump undermined America’s allies and cozied up to dictators. He demonized critics and whole groups of people. He used his office to enrich himself. He refused to admit his re-election defeat and incited a deadly insurrection that trashed the Capitol. He’s the only president to have been impeached twice.

Trump was such a bad president that dozens of his closest aides and appointees have denounced him. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper called him “a threat to democracy.” Former Chief of Staff John Kelly said Trump “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.” Army Gen. Mark Milley, whom Trump appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described him as “the most dangerous person in this country … a fascist to the core.”

I could go on, but you know all of this already. So does every Republican politician. And some of them are just fine with it. They either embrace Trump’s venality or they find it a convenient vehicle for their own advancement. These are the MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) Republicans.

Some members of this group traffic in lies, conspiracy theories and fact-free accusations. Rep. Jamie Comer of Kentucky abused his House oversight committee chairmanship to try to impeach President Joe Biden without any real evidence of wrongdoing. Comer’s comedy-of-errors “investigations” have made him a laughingstock outside the right-wing media bubble.

The second group are the Harris Republicans. Hundreds of former Republican members of Congress, retired military leaders and officials from Trump’s and previous Republican administrations have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. But few Republican officeholders have had the courage to join them. Two who did — former Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — were forced out of office by fellow Republicans for daring to tell the truth.

That brings us to the third and largest group, the Vichy Republicans. This name comes from the puppet government in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Vichy French officials were Hitler’s enablers, just as most sitting Republican politicians are Trump’s enablers.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is leader of the Vichy Republicans. This is ironic, because most MAGA Republicans despise McConnell as much as Democrats do. McConnell has occasionally criticized Trump, but he has been Trump’s enabler when it mattered most.

Shocked by the insurrection, McConnell made a speech blaming Trump. But when Trump was impeached for it, McConnell led Senate Republicans in voting to acquit him. Had Trump been convicted, we would not be threatened with another Trump presidency.

McConnell justified his acquittal vote by saying the criminal justice system would deal with Trump. But it hasn’t so far, thanks to McConnell’s efforts to pack the federal courts with partisans like U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida. She has done everything possible to keep Trump from being tried for stealing top-secret documents and hiding them at his Florida club, all the while continuing his bromance with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

McConnell dishonestly created the Supreme Court’s 6-3 Republican majority, which recently turned the Constitution and American history upside down to protect Trump. The Republican justices, including two who should have recused themselves, declared that presidents are now immune from prosecution for crimes they commit as part of their “official acts.” The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.

Most Vichy Republicans are just trying to keep their heads down, a task made easier by their lack of spines. They stay quiet because they are afraid of Trump and even more afraid of Republican voters, whose brains have been poisoned by Fox News, right-wing talk radio and online disinformation.

Vichy Republicans saw what happened to Cheney and Kinzinger. Preserving their careers is apparently more important to them than keeping nuclear weapons away from an immoral wannabe dictator who appears to be rapidly losing his mind.

History will be no kinder to the Vichy Republicans than it was to the Vichy French. Cheney summed it up well: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Tom Eblen is a former managing editor and columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

This story was originally published October 17, 2024 at 8:17 AM.