Juan Williams: It’s Trump vs. McConnell for the GOP’s future

Are you looking for a knockout?

The heavyweight fight for control of the Republican Party before the midterms now has both sides throwing serious leather.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) landed a big punch against former President Trump recently when Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) agreed to run for another term.

With Thune staying by his side as the Minority Whip, there is less chance of Trump’s loyalists pushing McConnell out as the top Republican in Washington.

But Trump earlier rocked McConnell when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.) signed up to be Trump’s tag-team partner.

Graham said he can’t vote for anyone — read that as McConnell — to head the GOP’s Senate caucus if that person “can’t have a working relationship with President Trump [and] prosecute the case for Trump policies.”

Graham and Trump conceivably have support from a few others in the Senate. Keep an eye on Trump acolytes such as Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

But Trump doesn’t have enough Senate Republicans lining up with him to defeat McConnell.

This fight is no sideshow. It has big consequences for the future of the Republican Party and America’s future as a democracy.

If Trump fully seizes control of the party on Capitol Hill, and Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate by the time of the 2024 presidential election, Trump will have the power to claim victory no matter the vote count.

McConnell is the one man remaining in the way of a complete Trump takeover of Republicans in Congress.

Trump is already endorsing congressional candidates in GOP primaries. He has a big campaign chest to offer candidates who pledge support to him. And Trump maintains a grip on the conservative echo chamber media, where all voices are expected to pass a litmus test by repeating Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020.

As a result, there is a rush of candidates imitating Trump’s polarizing style and repeating his lies about him winning the 2020 election.

But wiser GOP strategists know this competition among Trump imitators creates divisions in the Republican base and hurts the party’s chances in this year’s midterm races.

Splits among Republican voters leave the winner of these primaries with less chance to defeat Democrats in the general election, even in solid GOP districts.

That’s why McConnell is fighting Trump.

Unlike House races, every Republican running for a Senate seat faces a statewide general election. They can’t afford to carry the toxic burden of the Trump brand. And, if they lose, McConnell will miss a great opportunity to regain his old position as Majority Leader.

McConnell’s plans for winning a GOP majority in the Senate require him to play ‘rope-a-dope,’ letting the man who lost the presidency hold wild rallies while McConnell focuses on mainstream Washington politics.

The early rounds of this fight took place immediately after Jan. 6, 2021.

Both House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and McConnell were critical of Trump for inciting the deadly effort to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.

McCarthy said clearly “the president bears responsibility.”

A few weeks later, Trump told Jonathan Karl of ABC News that if “McConnell and McCarthy fought harder, okay, you could have a Republican president right now.”

Within days of blaming Trump for the attack, McCarthy traveled to Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago and made up. Since then he has shunned and exiled House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.

McCarthy’s strategy of being obsequious to Trump is not looking good.

He is still being threatened by Trump supporters who think he needs to be more like the defeated president.

“We know that Kevin McCarthy has a problem in our conference,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said in November. “He doesn’t have the full support to be Speaker.”

The drama is playing out differently on the Senate side. McCarthy’s weakness leaves McConnell as the leader of the non-Trump wing of the GOP.

McConnell also criticized Trump at the time of the riot. He said “the mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”

But unlike McCarthy, McConnell has neither apologized nor run to see Trump. In fact, he has cut off any talks with him.

So far, McConnell has stayed on his feet by keeping Trump at a distance.

His tactic of avoiding Trump is making McConnell a role model for most Senate Republicans.

They also remain united behind McConnell’s strategy for appealing to Trump voters. They are against everything proposed by President Biden.

Biden, at a press conference last week, said five Senate Republicans had told him they support some of his proposals but can’t say so publicly for fear of being beaten in primary races.

“What are Republicans for?” President Biden asked at the press conference last week. “What are they for? Name me one thing they are for.”

Biden pointed to New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s (R) decision not to run for the Senate because Republicans currently serving in the upper chamber told him their strategy is to “hold the line for two years.”

Sununu said he didn’t want to spend his time as a “roadblock.”

If Trump takes over the Senate GOP, the only remaining safeguard against him stopping certification of an election will be the Supreme Court — which has its own Republican majority.

It’s a grim vista.

That’s why everyone who cares about the future of democracy — Republican or not — should hope McConnell wins the GOP’s big fight.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.