Satan: "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n."

—John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I

Establishment Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell recently did his best to "sabotage" Republicans' chances of re-taking the Senate when he implied that the "quality" of the anti-establishment Trump-supporting Republican Senate candidates is subpar.

"I think there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate.  Senate races are just different [because] candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome," he said. 

Similarly, when Joe Biden was on the ropes with dreadful poll numbers for his disastrous policies, the usual cast of weakling closet Democrats in the Republican Party did their best to give poor old Joe and the Democrat party some talking points for the November 2022 midterms by helping them pass their bloated inflationary infrastructure bill and their silly gun-grabbing "red flag" gun control bill. 

The weakling Republicans, who get all wet and willing every time they hear a vacuous appeal to emotional fallacy, just couldn't help themselves when Joe said, "From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets, how many times have you heard that, 'just do something, for God's sake just do something'?"

Of course, Joe is thrilled that his poll numbers began to rise after input from his Republican cronies like Lindsey Graham, who once, in a fit of emotion, gushed that the man who just called half the country "semi-fascists" is "as good a man as God ever created" and on another occasion stated that its impossible not to like Joe Biden.  It is obvious that Graham is not right about everything.

Conservatives wonder why the party leaders who are supposed to represent them do such a poor job of doing so, and why, frankly, they as voters keep getting cynically shafted by these same Republican leaders. 

Unfortunately, many establishment Republican leaders do not appear to grasp that the rise of Trump was due precisely to rank-and-file anger at weak, undependable Republican leadership that was not put there to enrich itself but to represent the Republican base and stick to conservative principles, on the economy, on education, on guns, and on immigration.

Perhaps the most important of these, Sen. McConnell, does not appear to be bothered by the fact that he is both the most unpopular senator and has lost the confidence of most Republicans.  Astonishingly, it appears that McConnell may prefer to lose the Senate and continue to subject the country to Biden's hellish policies than lose his status as minority leader if a sufficient number of Trump Republicans win their Senate races.  The fact that the Republican base still prefers Trump should settle the debate for McConnell, no matter his private views.  Unfortunately, it is all too obvious that it is very easy in D.C. to sacrifice one's principles in order to be one of "the big guys." 

Conservatives never win because many establishment Republican leaders are what Trump said they are: weak.  Lindsey Graham, John Kennedy, Ted Cruz, and other influential Republicans need to remind McConnell that it is not about him.  It is about conservative and Republican voters.  The fate of the country may depend on it.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.