How the Democrats can retake the Senate from Mitch McConnell
The 2020 election season is more than a year away. While I’m all in for Liz Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and plenty of others, Democratic voters might benefit from focusing on the Senate races rather than attaching themselves too closely to a particular presidential candidate, as Republicans have to play defense in 22 states, and Democrats only need to gain four seats to retake the Senate. With Donald Trump attacking the Affordable Care Act yet again and Mitch McConnell touting “Medicare For None” as the issue that will unite Republicans next fall, Republican candidates are already trying to distance themselves from the two most powerful leaders of their own party.
It didn’t go particularly well for Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona, who told Chamber Business News in a Wednesday interview that her party’s stance on healthcare doesn’t actually mean repealing Obamacare. This would be blatant lying if it came from any Republican Senator, but it’s even more preposterous coming from McSally, who blatantly lied about her votes to repeal last year in the midterm elections and lost narrowly to Senator Kyrsten Sinema as a result. As a Congresswoman, McSally openly led the charge to repeal back in May 2017, cheering on fellow Republicans by shouting, “Let’s get this fucking thing done!”
Worse yet is McSally can’t exactly condemn Donald Trump for his attacks on Obamacare now, since she was voting to repeal as far back as 2012, even voting for a full repeal back in 2015 without any plan to replace it. Despite her loss to Sinema, she signed onto a bill this month that would further gut Obamacare protections. She clearly has no intention of protecting Obamacare. The quicker it’s gone, the quicker her wealthy donors get their payoff.
McSally became Arizona’s junior senator when Jon Kyl left the seat in January, and Governor Doug Ducey appointed her to the seat despite her election loss in November – which is a not so subtle way for Republicans to say they don’t really care what voters think. As the 2020 election draws nearer, we’ll be getting a closer look at how Republicans in Congress like Martha McSally have always held draconian, unpopular ideas and simply saw Donald Trump as their battering ram for getting things done. With McConnell’s recent vow to obstruct everything in his way if Donald Trump loses in 2020, we need Democrats to take the Senate if we want to get anything done.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making