![]() ![]() ![]() So-called socialist policies are increasingly popular among voters- more than half of Americans now favor Medicare for All, and 61 percent support a wealth tax on households with a net worth over $50 million. It is not clear how much longer these strategies will remain fruitful. (He would later call this "the most important thing I've ever done.") When Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for any potential replacement until after the election, knowing that no one could stop from from dispensing with democratic norms as he saw fit. When Obama sought to appoint federal judges-a basic presidential duty, and a foundational element of a functioning democracy-McConnell helmed an unprecedented Senate blockade to keep those seats vacant. When Barack Obama took office in 2008 alongside Democratic House and Senate majorities, McConnell vowed to thwart his every move, publicly dedicated himself to the task of Obama a one-term president. His most significant career accomplishments have all involved deploying that power at critical junctures to choke out his opponents' efforts to do things of great significance. "This is much broader than that." If he can successfully frame Democrats as sinister peddlers of ominous-sounding socialism, he argued, and Republicans as heroic defenders of American capitalism, his majority leadership-and perhaps his ally in the White House-will both remain secure.īlanket obstructionism is not a new posture for McConnell, who concerns himself less with enacting affirmative policies than he does with accumulating raw power on behalf of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. And I don't want you to think this is just a 28-year-old congresswoman from New York," he said, a not-so-veiled reference to the modern Republican Party's favorite supervillain. "Now, my friends, we're having a legitimate debate about the virtues of socialism. McConnell also expressed his desire to make the election a "referendum on socialism"-especially in Maine, Colorado, Arizona, and other purplish states in which a vulnerable GOP incumbent senator is up for re-election. "I guarantee you that if I'm the last man standing and I'm still the majority leader, it ain't happening. None of that stuff is going to pass," he told constituents in Kentucky on Monday. ![]() "If I'm still the majority leader in the Senate, think of me as the Grim Reaper. As 2020 Democratic candidates debate the merits of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college, and other ambitious progressive policies, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is happily preparing to play the role of spoiler should one of them win the White House. ![]()
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