Gerth: Trump is self-serving and entitled. McConnell bows to fear and backs him anyway.

One of the great political thrillers of all time was Richard Condon’s “Manchurian Candidate.”

It was about two American soldiers — Bennett Marco, played in the movie by Frank Sinatra, and Raymond Shaw, played by Laurence Harvey — who return from being held as P.O.W.s in the Korean War after they were brainwashed by their Chinese captors.

The Chinese had turned Shaw into a trained assassin who would murder on command while Marco and the other members of their unit were brainwashed to enable him by saying how much they loved and respected Shaw when prompted — even though they despised him.

“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life,” was the pat answer they gave when asked about Shaw, even though they knew deep down that it was anything but the truth.

He was a self-serving, entitled jerk who had never ever done anything for anyone other than himself.

Mitch McConnell has become, in some ways, Bennet Marco.

He doesn’t give the rote memorized line extolling the non-existent virtues of Trump when asked, but he also doesn’t tell what he knows to be the truth about Trump — that he, like Raymond Shaw is self-serving, entitled and a threat to the country and is willing to destroy our institutions to get his way.

That was on display again Thursday when Trump, who has again clinched the Republican nomination to be president of the United States, went to Capitol Hill to lock in support of the GOP establishment — many of whom hate Trump but who have been cowed into saying otherwise for fear of angering his base.

“We had a good meeting. Yeah, we did,” McConnell told reporters after the Senators’ audience with Trump.

He smiled when a reporter asked if Trump had said anything about him. Trump, who has savaged McConnell and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, didn’t say anything about him, he said.

“We shook hands a few times,” McConnell said. “It was an entirely positive session.”

Other former foes and current sycophants — like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance — stood behind Trump at a press conference after the event.

They all could have been saying, “Donald Trump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

It’s no more true about Trump than it was when Bennett Marco uttered those words about Raymond Shaw.

We all know unfailing love isn’t what McConnell really has for Trump because for just a few minutes in February, 2021, McConnell girded his loins and told the truth.

Back then, McConnell blamed Trump for the actions of the mob that stormed the Capitol and called it what it was.

“January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of domestic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House,” McConnell said.

“They built a gallows and chatted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on earth because he was angry. He lost an election.”

All the while Trump watched what was unfolding on television and did nothing to stop it.

It was, as McConnell said, “a disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

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Trump was, as McConnell said that day, “practically and morally responsible. … ”

“The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things. … This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voter’s decision or else torch our institutions on the way out. The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence actually began.”

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Over those three and a half years, Trump continued thundering about those shadowy voices.

But McConnell lost his voice.

He accepted the renomination of Trump without uttering a single word of warning like the clear message he sent that February day.

And at some point, he ceased being like Bennett Marco, who in the end of “The Manchurian Candidate” raced through a convention hall in a heroic attempt to find Raymond Shaw and stop him from doing lasting damage to his country.

McConnell would rather mindlessly mutter how great a meeting they had while the self-serving, entitled anti-hero of our tale threatens our nation.

I prefer the Richard Condon version of this story.

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mitch McConnell is scared of Trump, so he won’t tell the truth