WASHINGTON — He’s denounced one of his party’s most extreme new members of Congress. He’s voted to approve most of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees. And he’s expressed openness to a Republican compromise with the White House on a coronavirus relief package.
In the opening round of the 117th Congress, Sen. Mitch McConnell appears to be trying to take steps to reorient the Republican Party toward the political mainstream, even as Trumpism continues to be the prevailing strain among rank-and-file GOPers.
The question is whether his posture is just a temporary reaction to the political winds of the moment, a brief nod to the new Democratic Party power structure in Washington -- or a longer lens strategy that guides the party back to its pre-Trump roots and permits Republicans to practice the lost art of bipartisanship.
