Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell chimed in late Friday evening to congratulate now-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy weathered days of opposition, eventually offering enough concessions to secure the votes needed to break the logjam. Most of the conservatives involved seemed to walk away happy, garnering key positions on committees and rule changes that should bring the House back to some level of sanity.

For his part, McConnell decided to drop the following message, and I’m officially dead. I cease to be alive.

Congratulations to Speaker McCarthy and the Republican House majority. Senate Republicans look forward to working together to check and balance Washington Democrats, bring oversight to this reckless Administration, fight the far left’s radical policies, and defend America.

— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) January 7, 2023

I’m not sure there’s anything conservatives despise more than being gaslit by their own leadership, and this is gaslighting of the highest order. McConnell states that he is looking forward to “working together to check and balance Washington Democrats, bring oversight to this reckless Administration, fight the far left’s radical policies, and defend America.”

Apparently, McConnell thinks the rest of us were born sometime in the last few days because he literally just got done doing what was essentially a joint campaign stop with Joe Biden in Kentucky. Together, the two lauded the passage of a massive infrastructure bill, seen as a key victory for the White House’s agenda prior to the last election. McConnell himself helped whip the votes for that spending package.

An astute observer might ask exactly how giving the president everything he wants constitutes operating as a “check and balance” to the “reckless” Biden administration. McConnell has had the ability to say “no” to a range of things over the last two years, from the newly-passed $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package to the White House’s gun control bill. Instead, McConnell and other Republicans in the US Senate happily went along, handing Biden and his cohorts win after win.

Now, McConnell wants to play as if he’s a conservative warrior, looking to hamstring an out-of-control administration? Yeah, that doesn’t begin to play with those of us who have been paying attention. Heck, in shoving through the aforementioned omnibus package, McConnell actually neutered the very GOP majority in the House he’s now lauding. How can they “fight the far left’s radical policies” if they no longer have the power of the purse for the next fiscal year?

McConnell’s post just underscores how much is performative nonsense in Washington, DC. The elites in party leadership do whatever they want behind closed doors, making self-serving deals and selling their voters down the river. Then they turn around and pretend to be fighters for the cause even in the midst of surrendering every battle. McConnell isn’t going to do a thing to “check and balance” Joe Biden over the next term. Instead of insulting everyone’s intelligence, he should just stop talking.