Mitch McConnell is on the ropes. Don’t let him off the hook.
Mitch McConnell is only an effective villain because he makes impossible threats he knows he can’t pull off, then uses them as a starting point for negotiations. If you fall for it by saying “oh no he’s going to magically bankrupt the states,” you’re helping him. Don’t be his patsy.
If we all call out his initial position as being something he knows he can’t pull off, then he can’t use it as a starting point. All of this is about leverage. Every time you act like McConnell has a magic wand, you’re doing his bidding, and he’s playing you for a fool.
There’s a reason Pelosi openly taunts McConnell every time she’s about to sit down and negotiate with him. She knows she can’t throw him off his game with that stuff. She’s doing it for our sake, so we’ll be reminded that he’s not some evil magic wizard. He’s just a negotiator.
McConnell has done many horrible things to us. But he hasn’t managed to pull off half the stuff he’s threatened to do over the past few years. When we stand up to him, we usually defeat him. When we cower and assume he’s going to win, he usually wins. That’s not a coincidence.
The minute you decide that someone like Mitch McConnell has an evil magic wand, he basically does. You just gave it to him. His magic wand is your gullibility. The fatalists on our side who yell “McConnell’s going to get his way no matter what” are our biggest enemy.
If you haven’t noticed, this is war. It’s been a war for three years. In war, you win some big battles and you lose some big battles. The losses are always unacceptable, but war is hell. No one ever won a war by assuming the other side is going to win and giving up.
