Why Mitch McConnell Now Has to Stand up and Do His Job

This is the "break the glass" moment in our history. We face the uncertainty of an impeachment trial of a president who has publicly admitted to wrongdoing. This impeachment process is uncertain, just to the extent that the Senate Majority Leader (my Senator 🤮), Mitch McConnell, has openly declared his intention to thwart the twin principles of truth and justice.

We cannot allow this subversion of our politics. So, I went down to Mitch McConnell's office today to tell him so. Here's what I said.

Your pal,

Derek

Sometime today, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell will have to do something that will act as a touchstone for this historic moment in our nation’s history. He will have to utter these words, which will reverberate through the ages to come. He will be called upon to say for the record that:

“I, Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr., solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice, according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.”

Many people will be staggered by these words—since many of his constituents have assumed that his given name at birth was Lord Voldemort—given his penchant for trampling people and the institutions meant to secure impartial justice in the pursuit of power.

But just as morally revolting is the fact that Sen. McConnell has publicly stated his intention not to do impartial justice, but to collude with the Whitehouse to make absolutely certain justice never sees the light of day.

We people of faith call this “bearing false witness.” In other words, lying.

I know, I’m a man of faith and I’m supposed to be more judicious in my speech. Perhaps I should follow Jesus’ example and call him a whitewashed sepulcher. But however we choose to slice it rhetorically, he’s a man whom most people already assume speaks untruthfully as it suits his purposes. And it is this departure from the truth that lies at the heart of the rot plaguing our common life in this moment.

One of the most damaging implications of our politics right now is the deterioration of our trust that there’s any such thing as the truth.

It’s not just that the president, for instance, could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone without losing any voters. It’s that he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and say there’s no such thing as “5th Avenue” and not lose any voters.

As people of faith, we call on Mitch McConnell to live up to his oath—which is to say, to tell the truth (as uncomfortably unfamiliar as that might be).

People in the Abrahamic faith traditions believe that God is capable of redemption, of welcoming home the Prodigal. And if redemption is not the first thing on the ecclesiastical menu, we believe that God is at least capable of thwarting the recalcitrant and the unjust.

The author of the book of Proverbs says:

Whoever says to the guilty, “You are innocent,” will be cursed by peoples and denounced by nations. But it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and rich blessing will come on them (24:24–25).

Because in the end, what we all seek isn’t just some agreeably partisan outcome … some sort of “win” for our side. In our heart of hearts, what we care about is seeing that justice is done. Because justice animates our lives, gives us purpose, lights our path forward.

For what will it profit us to gain the whole world, but forfeit our lives, our dignity, our integrity?

I’m all about the separation of church and state. Looking back over my own faith tradition, we Christians are capable of great damage when we take control of the levers of power. Our job isn’t to rule, to make the country conform to our particular codes. Our job as people of faith is to set forth a vision for the possibility of a new world, a new politics in which those who’ve had their voices taken away will once again be heard, in which those who’ve been forgotten will finally take their place of honor at the front of the line, in which “impartial justice” isn’t just a phrase uttered out of political expediency, but forms the very contours of the life we live together.

Therefore, we call upon Sen. McConnell to live out the ideals of the oath he will take today, so help him God, to speak truthfully and to do impartial justice. Call witnesses. Release the documents. 

Impartial justice requires nothing less.