Mitch McConnell’s legacy: A ‘grim reaper’ for US bipartisanship?

McConnell is set to step down as the longest-serving Senate leader. Experts say he transformed the chamber into a battlefield.

A new United States Congress convenes in Washington, DC, on January 3. But for the first time in 18 years, a key Republican leader will no longer be at the helm: Senator Mitch McConnell.

Since 2007, McConnell has served as head of the Republican Party in the Senate, steering members of his caucus through four different presidencies and countless legislative hurdles.

Experts say his tenure as the Senate’s longest-serving party leader will ultimately be remembered as an inflexion point for Republicans and Congress as a whole.

Under McConnell, US politics moved away from the back-slappers and consensus-builders of earlier eras. Instead, McConnell helped to usher in a period of norm-breaking, hyper-partisan politics that paved the way for figures like incoming President Donald Trump, the leader of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

“First and foremost, he extended a trend in minority obstruction in the Senate,” Steven S Smith, professor emeritus of political science at Washington University in St Louis, told Al Jazeera.