Great job Kentucky for reelecting Governor Beshear. Now, could you get rid of Mitch McConnell next?
@wiseguyeddie the thing is, so many have adopted this mythological level of power afforded to the Leader in the Senate.
McConnell never had THAT much power. The rules of the Senate are set up specifically to prevent such a thing. BUT, all of the senators had incentive to back that myth, so they promoted it in the population.
Democrats got to hold McConnell up as a boogeyman, as a singular bad guy, a simplistic center of the story that they could sell to their backers. Republicans got to avoid tough votes by passing responsibility on to McConnell.
And, most relevant here, McConnell got to push for reelection by adopting that mantle of Super Important Senator when he really wasn't.
My fear is that posts like these just play in to that myth, serving McConnell and disempowering voters across the country.
We're better off ignoring the guy, if nothing else because by refusing to buy the false narrative we stop propping him up.
@volkris I see what you're attempting here but I wholeheartedly disagree. Mitch McConnell STOLE a Supreme Court seat from President Obama. To say McConnell is some sort of straw man for Democrats to campaign against is not sincere.
@wiseguyeddie you're illustrating my point here, though: No, he absolutely didn't, and he never had the authority to do so if he wanted to.
There is this myth that McConnell could call such a shot, but the Senate rules simply don't allow for such a thing.
Democrats got to use him as a boogeyman, Republicans avoided the vote, and McConnell got to run for election on it, but it's simply a lie, that the public bought into because they didn't know better.
The Senate rules ABSOLUTELY don't give any member such power to make such a decision. Instead, senators played us by laying out this line that it was all up to him because they benefited politically from doing so.
Because few people actually bother to check the rules.
@volkris You're making a normative argument here. I'm making a positivist one. I'm arguing from the standpoint of what is (and what ACTUALLY happened) rather than your position of what it should be. I'm not saying your argument is wrong, I'm looking at the results of the damage McConnell has caused whether he was allowed to by Senate rules or not.
@wiseguyeddie but you're factually wrong :)
To be clear: the Senate was absolutely free, under Senate rules, to consider and confirm Obama's Supreme Court nominee regardless of what McConnell thought of it.
Under Senate rules, McConnell didn't have authority to unilaterally block it. He didn't cause the nomination to stall, though it was convenient for everyone to claim it was up to him, so long as the American people would buy that lie.
Senators were completely free to vote to move forward with the nomination if they wanted to. They just saw more political benefit from putting on this show.
@volkris This is why I hate pedantic arguments. Did McConnell effectively thwart Obama's SCOTUS nominee. YES. You can give me as many facts and rules you researched (which I commend you for) but this conversation is pointless because I'm dealing with what actually happened and not what SHOULD have happened. I'm done. Bye.
@wiseguyeddie But no, McConnell didn't effectively thwart Obama's SCOTUS nominee.
You keep saying that, but it's not true.
