The Senate Majority Leader, responding to impeachment this morning, decried partisanship, polarization, and (appropriating language from the Federalist Papers) factionalism:

If the Senate blesses this, if the nation accepts this, presidential impeachments may cease being a once in a generation event and become a constant part, a constant  part of the political background noise. This extraordinary tool of last resort may become just another part of the arms race of polarization.

Real statesmen would have recognized, no matter what their view of this president, that trying to remove him on this thin and partisan basis could unsettle the foundations of our republic. Real statesmen would have recognized, no matter how much partisan animosity might be coursing through their veins, that cheapening the impeachment process was not the answer.

Historians will regard this as a great irony of our era: that so many who profess such concern for our norms and traditions themselves proved willing to trample our constitutional order to get their way.

. . .

It is clear what this moment requires. It requires the Senate to fulfill our founding purpose. The framers built the Senate to provide stability. To take the long view of our republic. To safeguard institutions from the momentary hysteria that sometimes consumes our politics. To keep partisan passions from literally boiling over. The Senate exists for moments like this.

That’s why this body has the ultimate say in impeachment. The framers knew the House would be too vulnerable to transient passions and violent factionalism. They needed a body that would consider legal questions about what has been proven and political questions about what the common good of our nation require.

Hamilton said explicitly in Federalist 55 that impeachment involves not just legal questions but inherently political judgments about what outcome best serves the nation. The House can’t do both. The courts can’t do both. This is as grave an assignment as the Constitution gives to any branch of government. And the framers knew only the Senate could handle it.

Well, the moment the framers feared, has arrived. A political faction in the lower chamber have succumbed to partisan rage. A political faction in the House of Representatives has succumbed to a partisan rage. They have fulfilled Hamilton’s philosophy that impeachment will, quote “connect itself with the pre-existing factions … enlist all their animosities … and … there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by a comparative strength of parties than by the real demonstration of innocence or guilt.” Alexander Hamilton.

The key element in McConnell’s communication strategy is to increase and intensify partisanship, polarization, and factionalism.

This is a principle, masterfully executed, from McConnell’s well-worn playbook. He understands that bipartisanship benefits Democrats and disadvantages Republicans. He knows that dysfunction and lack of trust in government benefits Republicans. He is well-versed at creating at once narratives for both Fox News (and company) and the mainstream press. FNC will trumpet his words as self-evident truths, while the mainstream story will be more squabbling between the parties.

This principle – which seeks to divide the country ever more firmly into warring camps – underscores everything McConnell does and says when he laments the state of our politics.