Yes! And this isn’t just opportunism or cynicism. The underlying ideology is that Democratic governance is per se illegitimate, that Democrats are pursuing an “Un-American” political project fueled by a coalition of people who don’t deserve their place in the body politic.
https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1404485731494543362
Of course McConnell is a shameless opportunist and unabashed cynic. But ideology circumscribes and defines the realm of opportunity. For all those supporting McConnell and his party, this kind of “hardball” is a viable option because they see it as a strategy in a noble war.
The context-free focus on opportunism and lust for power is inadequate analytically, if we want to understand what animates the Right; and it is problematic politically: It obscures the fundamentally anti-democratic (small d!) tendencies among conservatives.
Ignoring the underlying ideology makes it much easier for the media to marvel at McConnell’s devious political genius - while emphasizing the nature of the reactionary, anti-democratic project he is pursuing would generate a very different coverage.
It’s not so much the act of playing hardball and ignoring norms that should worry us - but the fact that Republicans are playing hardball in service of a reactionary political project aiming to prevent America from ever becoming a truly multiracial, pluralistic democracy.
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