I did a recent article on praise and blame for the recent Roe triumph. Praise needs to be given to Trump, for without his win in 2016 we don’t get the three justices who were the margin of victory. Blame, from the left, goes to Hillary, for losing in 2016 and to RBG for overstaying her welcome and not giving Obama a chance to name her successor. But, I forgot one guy.

It’s the guy who, by legislative expertise, made it possible. The guy who refused a vote on Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016 and saved the seat for Trump to choose in 2017. That man is Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.

Granted, if he hadn’t held up the 2016 Garland nomination to the court Roe still might have gone down 5-4. But then, Roberts, always looking for a supposed balance, can be unreliable. Ergo…

I can hear the populist caterwauling now. They can stuff it. The riff raff is mad at him because he correctly stated regarding January 6th, “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.” So then, naturally, Trump trashed McConnell and Trump’s jawohling minions followed their leader’s bellicosity in the matter. Just forget that McConnell is the guy who got all of Trump’s legislative successes through the Senate. Forget that Trump named McConnell’s wife to his Cabinet. And forget McConnell was loyal until Trump went around the bend after November 2020. But, the populist indictment against McConnell goes deeper than that.

The mob doesn’t like the “establishment” and it sees McConnell as the embodiment of such. One problem, everybody’s got an establishment. No matter who has power, Trump or anyone else, if they are successful over a long term they will install people in power who will develop an institutional power, i.e.-an establishment.

The issue is not whether there is an establishment in power. The issue is whose establishment is it? Is it the current collective of hard left ideologues and campus Marxists? Or do we return to the conservative/Republican establishment that, with a few sex and money scandals always along the way, generally tries to leave us alone, keep America safe, and spend less of our money? Mitch McConnell has been working in that latter vinyard since 1984.

He was there for Ronald Reagan. He was there for George H.W. Bush during Desert Storm and there for Bush the Younger at 9-11. He defended and worked for Trump almost to January 6th. But that was a bridge too far for him, as it was for many of us.

For a guy with that track record to take flak from a bunch of populist sidewalk Caesars is rich indeed. While they whine he plans. While they whisper their lunacies he works. While they call him a RINO he delivers for America the way he did for Trump on the Garland gambit. He’s the most effective and competent Republican in office today. So when celebrating the Roe reversal, you’d do well to remember the man from Kentucky who brought you to this particular dance. A lot of the praise belongs to him.