Saturday, June 1, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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There is one man who for the past decade has set America’s representative democracy back generations: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In 2008, McConnell declared that he would prevent President Barack Obama from serving a second term and that no meaningful appointment or legislation would be passed by a Senate under his control. For the past eight years, he has controlled the Senate and recently has referred to himself as the “grim reaper,” stating that anything that is of societal benefit is dead on arrival. Legislation proposed since January dealing with jobs, health care, election reform, climate change, gun control, equal wages, disaster aid, etc., were DOA with McConnell.
McConnell has only one objective, and that is to control the federal court system by confirming conservative judges to lifetime appointments. He has been successful in this endeavor, with more than 40 appellate court confirmations and two Supreme Court confirmations since Donald Trump became president. The Senate majority leader controls life-and-death issues as well as the direction of democracy for decades to come.
The middle class will be heading back into the 19th century but for one possible saving grace, and that is that both the “grim reaper” and the “extremely stable genius” president are scheduled for re-election in 2020.
