Movies gave birth to fictional political evil that cannot compare with the real thing.
In the classic film, Advise and Consent, Charles Laughton plays Senator Seabright Cooley, an evil, wily and soulless southern politician who would stop at nothing for power. At the end of the film, Cooley moves to destroy a man's life and drives him to suicide to get what he wants.
In House of Cards, Kevin Spacey plays Frank Underwood, a ruthless, evil, wily and soulless southern politician who becomes President by means of blackmail and ultimately murder.
In real life, we have a man who is worse than either fictional counterpart. Senator Mitch McConnell is a real-life Seabright Cooley and Frank Underwood, an evil, wily and soulless southern politician, reveling in his power to destroy and always trying to hustle people with his maneuvering.
McConnell just voted to acquit former President Trump, then stood on the Senate floor and said he was guilty. Then he reaches into his wrinkled ass, pulls out a hair, then splits it so thin that no one can see it, saying that Trump can't be convicted because he's no longer President, but while Trump was President, McConnell blocked a Senate trial, telling Democrats to do it after Trump was no longer President.
This is the same man who blocked an Obama SCOTUS appointment because it was six months from a Presidential election, then rushed through his own pick weeks before a Presidential election.
Okay, we see he's a liar and soulless human being, but why did he do what he did? Because like Cooley and Underwood, McConnell thinks he can politic or lie his way out of anything, including the Gorilla Glue suit his support of Trump forced him into. But like both of the fictional southern politicians, McConnell has screwed himself to the wall and given Trump the means to finally destroy the Republican Party forever.
Now Trump can reappear as a battle-tested soldier, defeater of liberals and defender of racists and very good people everywhere. He will take that base from Republicans, leaving them with vets, abortion fanatics and Walker, Texas Ranger fans.
And in that fire, McConnell will burn and die.
Seabright Cooley and Frank Underwood both played the games of lies and manipulation until they had spun a web so vast and filled with enemies, that they fell prey to their own evil. We can see that happening to McConnell already. His position is indefensible. He's going to be damned by normal Republicans for not convicting Trump and blamed by the radical base Republicans for condemning him on the Senate floor.
If America does fall to autocracy, McConnell will be the father of it for tearing down norms and democracy for sport. And if America survives, then McConnell will be forever vilified as a traitor, a real-life filthy southern politician.
©2021 Gary Hardwick
