In recent days, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continued on with his status as a defender of the Trump-ian status quo no matter what bedrock of American democracy hangs in the balance and blocked election security bills from proceeding in the Senate. The bills, among other things, would have provided for paper ballots (which are less easily tampered with) and a legal requirement for candidates to report offers of foreign assistance to the FBI. In response to McConnell deciding that these basic security provisions would be too political for him to support, outpourings of opposition flowed from all corners of the political spectrum, and phrases like “Mitch McConnell is a Russian” and “#MoscowMitch” trended on Twitter. The first one alone had accumulated over 83,000 tweets by early Saturday afternoon.
One widely shared piece in The Washington Post from Dana Milbank slammed McConnell as a “Russian asset” and is where the “Mitch McConnell is a Russian” phrase comes from, since it’s in its title. Milbank bluntly shares:
‘Russia attacked us in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses, McConnell blocks us from defending ourselves. The Kentucky Republican is doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.’
“Russia attacked us in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses, McConnell blocks us from defending ourselves. The Kentucky Republican is doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.” https://t.co/srsl4Kwief
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) July 27, 2019
Just this past week before Congress, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller insisted that Russia was continuing its efforts to interfere in U.S. elections “as we sit here.” McConnell and his Republican colleagues don’t seem to care.
As prominent public defender Scott Hechinger put it, speaking of the Senate leader:
‘To control the judiciary for a generation to come he has & will do anything.’
To control the judiciary for a generation to come he has & will do anything. https://t.co/bkRHP7Z8bP
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) July 27, 2019
The Democratic Coalition’s co-founder Scott Dworkin asserted that McConnell is a “traitor” and an “accomplice to the biggest traitor in American history — Donald Trump,” while author Steve Silberman added:
‘One reason the GOP stays in lockstep to keep the lid on Trump’s treason is that if the flag-waving “America First!” base ever realizes they’ve been punked, suckered, conned, duped by Mitch McConnell to do Putin’s bidding, they will freak out.’
The criticism goes on.
Exactly this. One reason the GOP stays in lockstep to keep the lid on Trump’s treason is that if the flag-waving “America First!” base ever realizes they’ve been punked, suckered, conned, duped by Mitch McConnell to do Putin’s bidding, they will freak out. https://t.co/Om9XlGCsOF
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) July 27, 2019
The Trump administration itself could be taking a leadership role in responding to the threat of Russian election interference, but they refuse. When asked about the president’s latest perception of the issue just the other day, longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway asserted that the team stood against all election interference efforts — including those from journalists, the existence of which is an outlandish assertion and makes their refusal to accept reality abundantly clear.
Check out more Twitter responses…
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