Mitch McConnell is in more trouble than we thought
Things haven’t been going so well for Mitch McConnell, the man who may have done more harm to American democracy in the long term than Donald Trump. Because more people know who McConnell is than ever before, it makes it much more difficult for him to plot in secret. He’s the most despised Senator in the country, with only an 18% favorability rating in his home state going into an election year. He’s been routinely rebuked in public by his constituents and earned himself the nickname “Moscow Mitch,” for his not so secret liaisons with the Kremlin.
It’s about to get worse.
McConnell might like to imagine that it’s just his enemies in the Resistance who aren’t happy with his four decade career in Washington, but animosity is growing among his fellow Republicans. Senators up for re-election in 2020 know their prospects won’t be great if Moscow Mitch keeps blocking bills passed by the House. Now, a group of Republican voters are making their thoughts known with a new ad against McConnell.
The group of Republicans appropriately calls itself “Republicans for the Rule of Law” airing an ad almost daily starting Wednesday during the Trump administration mouthpiece that is Fox & Friends. The ad will also run weekly during Meet the Press, urging viewers across the country to call Mitch McConnell to bring election security to a vote. The commercial begins by announcing McConnell’s refusal to vote on two election security bills, followed by 40 seconds of Trump statements denying Russia’s interference in the election.
Will the ad bring either of these bills to fruition? The ad campaign costs $400,000 – and includes digital ads begging the question, which will run in states where members of the Senate Judiciary Committee live. McConnell may be reluctant to bring it to a vote, but a more appropriate question is whether the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are willing to sacrifice donations and their own chances at re-election for the notoriously unpopular McConnell.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making