Mitch McConnell didn’t take the attempt to kidnap and kill him personally

It was just business after all (these Godfather references are symptomatic):

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told GOP colleagues in a letter that he will vote to acquit Donald Trump in the former president’s impeachment trial, according to sources familiar with the communication.

McConnell’s announcement ends a long period of silence over whether he would consider convicting Trump for incitement of insurrection and could pave the way for many other Republicans to follow in acquittal. The Kentuckian shared his decision in a note to fellow GOP senators on Saturday morning, ahead of what could be the final day of Trump’s second impeachment trial.

Any hope of “reforming” the Republican party in its present form is absurd.

Speaking of which, I notice a lot of people went after Jon Chait’s piece on Gina Carano by claiming that of course it’s ridiculous to say Carano was “cancelled” for being a conservative. Rather, we are told, she was not re-upped for her Star Wars role because she openly advertises her belief in the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, plus she traffics in anti-Semitic and transphobic tropes etc.

Newsflash: the overwhelming majority of conservatives/Republicans in this country believe, or at least claim to believe, the Big Lie. Indeed, accepting the Big Lie is a constitutive aspect of being a conservative and a Republican in America in 2021. And again, it’s perfectly OK and indeed an affirmatively good thing to sanction somebody, via things like adverse employment decisions, for advertising their belief in core Republican dogmas such as the Big Lie.