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Mitch McConnell will<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/28/mcconnell-senate-november/" target=_blank> step down from his longtime post</a> as Senate Republican leader in November, he announced on Wednesday, to spend more time eroding the rights of his family.

“I got into public service hoping to make a difference,” McConnell said in a floor speech. “And I did: a negative difference. Things are objectively worse now, thanks to me. Knowing that, I can retire from this role.”

Looking back on a tenure that saw him chip away at the nation’s political institutions, obstruct President Barack Obama at every turn, reshape the Supreme Court to strip reproductive rights from women, and fail to convict President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> after he incited an insurrection that flooded onto the floor of the Senate, McConnell said he was eager to spend more time fraying the fabric of his own home and family circle.

At time of writing, he had already moved his armchair to a very inconvenient location.

“For two decades,” McConnell said, “obstruction has been my passion. Just because I will no longer be Senate minority leader does not mean that I won’t get to keep doing what I love.”

McConnell gestured broadly at the country and said he was eager to turn his destructive gaze from public institutions to private ones — family dinner, board game nights, sitting quietly on the couch reading a book. “These seem sturdy,” he noted, “but so did the Senate when I got there, and now look at it. As I look at it, you can’t spell Monopoly without N-O.”

In retirement, McConnell eagerly anticipates standing in the middle of pickleball courts with his arms folded while people try to play around him, digging up his neighbors’ gardens and unplugging the pottery wheels of people trying to learn ceramics.

“It won’t be the same without the heady rush of power to devastate millions of human lives,” McConnell sighed, “but it will be nice to be able to keep a hand in, all the same.”

McConnell noted that he had already been offered a number of positions in the private sector for once he finishes his regular term in January 2027: as a disembodied, evil eye presiding over a blighted land; sitting in a lifeguard chair peacefully while people struggle and call for help; or just parked on an expressway at rush hour in the path of emergency vehicles.

But the leader said he would be happy simply going on neighborhood walks with his loved ones, throwing passing children’s ice creams on to the ground and turning over turtles “the wrong way.”

Despite McConnell’s years of dedicated service catering to Republicans’ worst impulses and making it possible for them to do the bad things they had been trying to do, many in the party responded to news of the departure by spitting in the outgoing leader’s eye and saying “Good riddance.”

McConnell shrugged. “This is all they know how to do anymore. You’re welcome!”

To those concerned about his departure, McConnell said not to worry: “The best part of my legacy? The guarantee that my successors will almost certainly be even worse!”

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Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of  <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Alexandra-Petris-History-Important-Documents/dp/1324006439/">"AP's US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up).</a>  

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McConnell retiring to spend more time eroding the rights of his family

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