January 15 update: David Dayen and Akela Lacy have come to the same conclusion I did (“Why Won’t Mitch McConnell Just End Trump’s Shutdown: He’s Up for Re-Election in 2020”). They write: “It’s one thing to deal with the wild mood swings and irrationality of Trump during the shutdown. But McConnell is acting as Trump’s clone in the Senate. Sometimes an upcoming re-election will make a politician moderate their views. But McConnell knows, whether he likes it or not, that the modern Republican Party is a party of Trump, and if he wants to return to the Senate, he cannot let a sliver of daylight come between him and his president.”

Initial post: Why is the Senate Majority Leader missing in action on the government shutdown?

“Maybe McConnell doesn’t want his members to have to choose between bucking Trump and opening the government, given Trump still enjoys high approval rating within the party.” (“Mitch McConnell could end the shutdown. But he’s sitting this one out,” Washington Post)

“McConnell has a record of negotiating bipartisan deals as well as protecting his Republican members from politically costly votes.” (“Government shutdown: How much longer can Mitch McConnell sit it out?” Los Angeles Times)

True enough, but both these accounts leave something out: McConnell, hardly popular in Kentucky (though always more popular than whichever Democrat he faces in the general election), is as vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2020 as anyone else in the Republican caucus. (And, after increasing levels of chaos in the Trump White House throughout the first two years, beating a Democrat after two more years of who knows what, may not be a sure thing by November 2020 even in Kentucky.)

So, let’s not overlook the fact that the man is as fearful of standing up to Trump – because it could lead to his defeat – as any Republican in the Senate.

(Photo of McConnell at CPAC in 2011 via wikimedia.)