Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is blocking votes on basically everything the House passes, and of course the media—most lately, Politico—sees this as a problem for Democrats in 2020, not Republicans. Because, see, Democrats tried to do things but failed, which is much worse than actively blocking good things from happening.
Sure, McConnell sneers at the very idea of cleaning up elections and won’t allow it to come to a vote … but that’s a win because it “den[ies] Democrats tangible wins to tout on the campaign trail.” And gridlock is “the latest reality check for House Democrats,” as opposed to something everyone who’s paid even cursory attention to U.S. politics knew would happen when Democrats took the House. But here are Politico’s Heather Caygle and Burgess Everett writing as if Speaker Nancy Pelosi never anticipated that Mitch McConnell might not allow votes on Democratic priorities and just assumed that her entire agenda would get a fair shot in the Senate. Reality check, my ass.
And, you know, when Senate Majority Whip John Thune claims that “Most of that stuff is really easy for Republicans in the Senate to message against,” the follow-up question is, “Okay, so why not allow it a vote and message against it then? Why only allow a vote on the Green New Deal and not on, say, cleaning up elections or a $15 minimum wage?”
Yes! Mitch McConnell is an amoral snake who cares only for power and will do everything he can to block Democratic priorities. This has been baked into U.S. politics for more than a decade. To be sure, it’s a political and policy problem for Democrats, but more importantly, it’s a problem for the country to have a major political figure interested only in his party’s power. Yet somehow, that gets a lot less play in the media than what might be problematic for Democrats.
