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The below is a copy/paste from Facebook of my thoughts on an article posted by George Takei.
The. Republicans. (And Mitch McConnell in particular.) Do. Not. Care.
While Trump and Kavanaugh and their ilk are the much flashier, more attention-grabbing villains in this story, I have thought for a long time that they might just be dragons to Mitch McConnell, who may actually be the true Big Bad. Or if Trump is the Big Bad, McConnell would be the Bigger Bad. If there are villains to be had at all here, it is these guys, to be sure. (Along with Vladimir Putin, but it is not as readily apparent that Putin has any hooks into McConnell the same way he obviously does into Trump, so I'll leave Putin out of this for the time being, even though it's possible, and maybe even likely, that Putin does indeed have some sort of kompromat on McConnell and many others in Congress, which could be influencing them to act like such shitheels.)
Relevant TVTropes links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreaterScopeVillain?from=Main.BiggerBad
McConnell has been around in the national political spotlight for much longer than Trump and Kavanaugh have been, for one thing, which has allowed him, with the help of his fellow GOP Congressassholes, to quietly lay down the framework that has allowed guys like Trump and Kavanaugh to even be *considered* for the positions they hold now, let alone actually hold them.[1] It is thanks in large part to McConnell that the Presidency remains a total clusterfuck (thanks to him refusing to do anything whatsoever to even pretend to curtail Trump) and that the Supreme Court has become a total clusterfuck (thanks to his dogshit behavior by stonewalling Merrick Garland[2] and then equally thanks to his dogshit behavior by comparatively ramming through Gorsuch and now Kavanaugh).
Mitch McConnell was, if you might recall, the guy who said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," back around the time when the GOP tragically took control of the Senate^W (EDIT) House of Representatives (since they didn't get the Senate until 2014, but the Democrats did lose their "super majority" in the Senate in 2010... (EDIT 2) which they actually never had to begin with, really https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/debunking-the-myth-obamas_b_1929869.html (/EDIT 2) ...just goes to show I need to fact check *myself* better) (/EDIT) in the 2010 elections[3] (and yet the GOP has the blatant audacity now to try to claim that it is the Democrats who are obstructionists, as if people don't remember the GOP's own endless goddamned obstructionist bullshit the entire fucking time they were in power during Obama's two [suck it, Mitch] terms in office). So, if nothing else, I think McConnell's hypocrisy is much worse, which is on blatant display in the Second Nexus article here.
The saddest thing, though, is that McConnell must be doing something that (too many of) the people of Kentucky like, because they keep reelecting the evil motherfucker. I guess this says as much about Kentucky as it does about McConnell (though whether what is said is about how stupid Kentucky's citizens are or about how gerrymandered/voter suppressed Kentucky is, I'm not sure, but I'd guess that it's probably a little bit of both of those).
On the bright side, McConnell's power and influence can be greatly mitigated if the Democrats, at the very least, gain control of the Senate in November. This is, in and of itself, an excellent reason why the GOP needs to lose the Senate, even ignoring all the bullshit surrounding Trump that might at least start to get fixed with a blue Senate.
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[1] - In the case of Trump, it's kind of funny, because I would say that it was just as much due to the *utter* *incompetence* of McConnell and his ilk that led to Trump becoming President as it was due to their direct, active scheming (at least once it became clear they could do nothing to stop Trump from becoming the nominee), given that it was the frustration of the GOP base with "career politicians" (like, say, Mitch McConnell himself) which led to them flocking to "non-politician" Trump in the first place.
[2] - "One of my proudest moments was when I looked at Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.'" -- Mitch McConnell, August 6, 2016. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mitch-mcconnell-one-of-my-proudest-moments/
[3] - National Journal, October 23, 2010. Here's a link, but it requires a login to even view the article, and fuck that noise. The main and secondary headlines say enough, though: https://www.nationaljournal.com/member/magazine/top-gop-priority-make-obama-a-one-term-president-20101023 And apparently the entire interview in question can be found here, as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html Well, I say that the single most important thing the American people as a whole should want to achieve is to make the GOP a defunct political party as soon as possible. (And, yes, when Democrats, including Obama himself, claimed that McConnell said this *on* *day* *one* of Obama's Presidency, that was wrong. Just goes to show that you need to fact check Democrats just as much as you do Republicans. It's just that there is so much *more* Republican bullshit to fact check, that it's nigh impossible to keep up.)
Later comments:
Here is a post I wrote about McConnell on November 7, 2014: https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/664743.html
---
What this means for here and now is that even *if* there is a "Blue Wave" in November, that in no way means that it will be smooth sailing from then onward, because the GOP will be plotting in the background to regain control yet again, and just may very well do it (with a little help from any potential Democrat incompetence, as was the case last time, as well). The Democrats sailed into power in 2008 on the heels of the disastrous Dubya presidency (though Dubya was a paragon of a POTUS compared to Trump), and then they managed to lose the House within two years and had lost control of the entire thing, aside from Obama being President, six years later. And then they lost the presidency as well via Trump's bloated ass.
---
https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/664424.html
---
https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/tag/mitch+mcconnell
The. Republicans. (And Mitch McConnell in particular.) Do. Not. Care.
While Trump and Kavanaugh and their ilk are the much flashier, more attention-grabbing villains in this story, I have thought for a long time that they might just be dragons to Mitch McConnell, who may actually be the true Big Bad. Or if Trump is the Big Bad, McConnell would be the Bigger Bad. If there are villains to be had at all here, it is these guys, to be sure. (Along with Vladimir Putin, but it is not as readily apparent that Putin has any hooks into McConnell the same way he obviously does into Trump, so I'll leave Putin out of this for the time being, even though it's possible, and maybe even likely, that Putin does indeed have some sort of kompromat on McConnell and many others in Congress, which could be influencing them to act like such shitheels.)
Relevant TVTropes links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GreaterScopeVillain?from=Main.BiggerBad
McConnell has been around in the national political spotlight for much longer than Trump and Kavanaugh have been, for one thing, which has allowed him, with the help of his fellow GOP Congressassholes, to quietly lay down the framework that has allowed guys like Trump and Kavanaugh to even be *considered* for the positions they hold now, let alone actually hold them.[1] It is thanks in large part to McConnell that the Presidency remains a total clusterfuck (thanks to him refusing to do anything whatsoever to even pretend to curtail Trump) and that the Supreme Court has become a total clusterfuck (thanks to his dogshit behavior by stonewalling Merrick Garland[2] and then equally thanks to his dogshit behavior by comparatively ramming through Gorsuch and now Kavanaugh).
Mitch McConnell was, if you might recall, the guy who said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," back around the time when the GOP tragically took control of the Senate^W (EDIT) House of Representatives (since they didn't get the Senate until 2014, but the Democrats did lose their "super majority" in the Senate in 2010... (EDIT 2) which they actually never had to begin with, really https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/debunking-the-myth-obamas_b_1929869.html (/EDIT 2) ...just goes to show I need to fact check *myself* better) (/EDIT) in the 2010 elections[3] (and yet the GOP has the blatant audacity now to try to claim that it is the Democrats who are obstructionists, as if people don't remember the GOP's own endless goddamned obstructionist bullshit the entire fucking time they were in power during Obama's two [suck it, Mitch] terms in office). So, if nothing else, I think McConnell's hypocrisy is much worse, which is on blatant display in the Second Nexus article here.
The saddest thing, though, is that McConnell must be doing something that (too many of) the people of Kentucky like, because they keep reelecting the evil motherfucker. I guess this says as much about Kentucky as it does about McConnell (though whether what is said is about how stupid Kentucky's citizens are or about how gerrymandered/voter suppressed Kentucky is, I'm not sure, but I'd guess that it's probably a little bit of both of those).
On the bright side, McConnell's power and influence can be greatly mitigated if the Democrats, at the very least, gain control of the Senate in November. This is, in and of itself, an excellent reason why the GOP needs to lose the Senate, even ignoring all the bullshit surrounding Trump that might at least start to get fixed with a blue Senate.
-----
[1] - In the case of Trump, it's kind of funny, because I would say that it was just as much due to the *utter* *incompetence* of McConnell and his ilk that led to Trump becoming President as it was due to their direct, active scheming (at least once it became clear they could do nothing to stop Trump from becoming the nominee), given that it was the frustration of the GOP base with "career politicians" (like, say, Mitch McConnell himself) which led to them flocking to "non-politician" Trump in the first place.
[2] - "One of my proudest moments was when I looked at Barack Obama in the eye and I said, ‘Mr. President, you will not fill this Supreme Court vacancy.'" -- Mitch McConnell, August 6, 2016. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mitch-mcconnell-one-of-my-proudest-moments/
[3] - National Journal, October 23, 2010. Here's a link, but it requires a login to even view the article, and fuck that noise. The main and secondary headlines say enough, though: https://www.nationaljournal.com/member/magazine/top-gop-priority-make-obama-a-one-term-president-20101023 And apparently the entire interview in question can be found here, as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html Well, I say that the single most important thing the American people as a whole should want to achieve is to make the GOP a defunct political party as soon as possible. (And, yes, when Democrats, including Obama himself, claimed that McConnell said this *on* *day* *one* of Obama's Presidency, that was wrong. Just goes to show that you need to fact check Democrats just as much as you do Republicans. It's just that there is so much *more* Republican bullshit to fact check, that it's nigh impossible to keep up.)
Later comments:
Here is a post I wrote about McConnell on November 7, 2014: https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/664743.html
---
What this means for here and now is that even *if* there is a "Blue Wave" in November, that in no way means that it will be smooth sailing from then onward, because the GOP will be plotting in the background to regain control yet again, and just may very well do it (with a little help from any potential Democrat incompetence, as was the case last time, as well). The Democrats sailed into power in 2008 on the heels of the disastrous Dubya presidency (though Dubya was a paragon of a POTUS compared to Trump), and then they managed to lose the House within two years and had lost control of the entire thing, aside from Obama being President, six years later. And then they lost the presidency as well via Trump's bloated ass.
---
https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/664424.html
---
https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/tag/mitch+mcconnell
