The 2024 presidential campaign had many unique aspects: President Joe Biden’s abrupt, belated withdrawal; Donald Trump’s historic renaissance after his 2020 defeat; the first-ever nomination of a woman of color.
But beyond the headlines, the evolution of two top Republicans provided a window into the GOP’s transformation in the Trump era.
One entered politics as a moderate Republican, a civil rights supporter from a border state, and reflected his party’s evolution as he steadily steered right. He facilitated the conservative takeover of the Supreme Court and became one Trump’s prime enablers, while privately showing his contempt.
In so doing, outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell epitomized how his party’s spineless leadership surrendered Abraham Lincoln’s party to a power-hungry huckster.
The other entered politics as the conservative scion of a conservative elder, exemplifying both the GOP establishment’s traditional hardline foreign policy and its newer, equally firm anti-abortion stance. But the party’s transformation unsettled her, and she rebelled when Trump refused to accept his 2020 defeat and inspired a threat to the constitutional process to certify the result.