In truth, together with Congressional luminaries such as Nancy Pelosi and Biden himself, McConnell is part of an exclusive slice of America’s political elite. Like them, he first entered Congress before a majority of today’s Americans were even born. If he succeeds in serving out his current senatorial term, McConnell will end his stay in the US Senate after 42 years of service. There are two ways to interpret such a long term in office: either as a testament to McConnell’s great skills as a politician and a statesman, or as an indictment of an increasingly gerontocratic and dysfunctional political class.

If one takes a step back and considers where America is at present, one of these interpretations becomes far more plausible than the other. When McConnell entered the Senate, the US was united, prosperous, and close to winning the Cold War. Today, the country is ruinously indebted, internally divided, and facing military overstretch and exhaustion abroad. The percentage of the American population with a positive job approval of Congress hovers around 16% — only slightly above the proportion who say they have personally seen, interacted with, or been abducted by a UFO.

There’s already quite a lot of talk about battle lines being drawn between “pro-MAGA” and “anti-MAGA” candidates battling it out in Congress for the honour of becoming the new Senate leader. No doubt there are still those who think that the big problem here is McConnell himself, or his politics. In his absence, it is surely important to find a replacement with the “right” political opinions (whatever those are is an open question), isn’t it?

Maybe, but maybe not. Hoping that a Rick Scott or a John Thune — two of the three big names floated as his upcoming replacement — will somehow right the ship might turn out to be a vain hope. The Republican Party remains deeply divided: even after Trump’s election victory, rumours are already swirling about controversial appointments and battles over cabinet positions.

There exists an idea that personnel is policy, which is in some ways true, but policy doesn’t go very far inside a bureaucratic structure that can no longer even pass a budget. The American Empire isn’t nearly as spry or reformable as it once was. Rick Scott may say, think, and promise many things; what he is likely to deliver, almost by default, is gridlock. Whether there’s a “pro-Trump” or “anti-Trump” leader in the Senate might turn out to matter much less than many think, because the problem in Congress today isn’t necessarily one of will. Increasingly, it is a problem of ability.

The genius of McConnell’s political generation was that they essentially calcified American politics. They held on to power far longer than they should have, ensuring stability for themselves and their parties at the cost of making the system immune to reform. In Mitch McConnell, America truly found its Leonid Brezhnev. Meanwhile, the details of the battle now fought between the senators auditioning to be the next Gorbachev will likely end up as a footnote in a broader history. All of this is partly McConnell’s fault, and his greatest triumph.

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Malcom Kyeyune is a freelance writer living in Uppsala, Sweden

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