Exit Senator McCaskill, Stage Center

The twelve years that Claire McCaskill has served as the Senator from Missouri have not been good for Congress. They saw the unprecedented rise of partisan rancor and the collapse of legislative process; bills are now written in the majority leader’s office, rather than in bipartisan, collaborative committees; and moderates are discouraged from reaching across the aisle. “The more dysfunctional this place gets,” McCaskill, a Democrat, says, “the more people in the real world are going, ‘You guys suck. You guys are terrible. All of you. A pox on both your house[s] . . .’ It’s very dangerous for this democracy.” While McCaskill has damning words for Mitch McConnell, who she says “looks at everything through the lens of ‘how can I stay majority floor leader,’ ” she sees at least one potential upside to Trump’s unprecedented style: “More elected officials will realize that people will be forgiving of you if you say something stupid,” McCaskill argues. That’s salutary in her view, because “the lack of authenticity is really problematic for a lot of people around this building. They are so poll driven and so scripted. . . . Then it’s easier to swipe with a broad brush and say, ‘They’re all phony.’ ”