The curious logic of Mitch McConnell (update #7)

Updates

  1. Originally published, December 16, 2020, 7:28 am.

  2. December 16, 10:15 am:


    • Fig. 1. “‘Are we there yet?’” Cartoon by David Sipress for the New Yorker, December 15, 2020, fair use.

  3. December 16, 2:50 pm:

    • I’m back home, safely.


      Fig. 2. Photograph by author, December 16, 2020, on Lebanon Road, West Mifflin.

      I tried going out to do the usual Uber thing but found I lacked sufficient traction for safe braking on parts of Streets Run Road even as I was on my way to my first order. I got the lady where she was going and went off line.

      People are driving conservatively, quite an adjustment for me after a year and a half of 25 miles per hour over the limit being the norm (it’s reckless and an automatic suspension where I come from), but even so, I was delayed getting home due to a collision on Lebanon Road (figure 2). Lebanon Road is a heavily traveled road and there wasn’t a snowplow in sight.

    • I don’t even have any idea what to say. It’s not like it should even remotely be a surprise that poverty in the U.S. is skyrocketing[1] along with shoplifting.[2] Because—yet another utter and complete non-surprise—the elites don’t give a fuck.[3] Social scientists have only been telling us about the link between so-called “common crime” and poverty for, like, forever.[4]

  4. December 16, 8:15 pm:

    • I wound up not going back out. I looked at the weather forecast and decided that if the snowplows weren’t already caught up, which they weren’t, they weren’t going to be before morning. My Twitter feed is full of reports of collisions in the area. I’m glad I wasn’t out.


      Fig. 3. Photography by author, December 16, 2020. My idea of Christmas trees. Alive, in the ground, and unadorned with useless crap. There was a third tree that unfortunately got toppled in a recent windstorm.

  5. December 17, 10:05 am:

    • This might be another day at home. From what I’m able to gather, the roads are still a mess, with more snow expected later this afternoon.

      This isn’t an easy call. It’s a slow time of year anyway. I need to make the money I can because even at the best of times, my margin is pretty thin.

  6. December 17, 2:44 pm:

  7. December 18, 8:46 am:


Mitch McConnell

I need to begin here by emphasizing that I am not in favor of Donald Trump serving another four years. I don’t support Joe Biden either, but that’s another issue.

At stake here is a final effort among Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to overturn the election results in which Biden won and Trump lost. It apparently requires 1) at least one representative and at least one senator to bring the matter to a vote, and 2) the assent of both the House and the Senate to reject some electoral college votes. This is not forthcoming in the Democrat-controlled House so, just as the Democrats in the House can pass bills that sound progressive but remain true to neoliberal dogma with the assurance that they are dead on arrival in the Senate, the Senate could pass such a rejection with absolutely no fear that it would pass the House.[5] Senate Republicans would have expressed their fealty to Trump and Georgia Trumpsters might be a little less convinced that Republicans have not done enough to “defend” Trump, thus improving the likelihood that Republicans would win the upcoming Senate runoffs in Georgia.[6]

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is worried that Republican senators would feel compelled to vote against the move and thus decline Trump his “defense,” leading to a catastrophe in 2022 and therefore urges senators against supporting it. I don’t understand that. Because this is in any case dead in the House. Republican senators could remain true to Trumpism by supporting the rejection with no fear that it would pass the House.[7] It would be a toothless move.

Marianne Levine and Melanie Zanona, “McConnell warns Senate Republicans against challenging election results,” Politico, December 15, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/15/mcconnell-gop-election-results-445524


Depression

Heather Long, “Nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the summer,” Washington Post, December 16, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/16/poverty-rising/


  1. [1]Heather Long, “Nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the summer,” Washington Post, December 16, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/16/poverty-rising/
  2. [2]Abha Bhattarai and Hannah Denham, “Stealing to survive: More Americans are shoplifting food as aid runs out during the pandemic,” Washington Post, December 10, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/10/pandemic-shoplifting-hunger/
  3. [3]David Benfell, “The mysterious expectation that elites give a damn,” Not Housebroken, December 9, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/08/01/the-mysterious-expectation-that-elites-give-a-damn/
  4. [4]Steven E. Barkan, Criminology: A Sociological Understanding, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006); Robert K. Merton, “Social Structure and Anomie,” in Social Theory, ed. Charles Lemert, 6th ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2017), 181-190; Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, 7th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004).
  5. [5]Marianne Levine and Melanie Zanona, “McConnell warns Senate Republicans against challenging election results,” Politico, December 15, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/15/mcconnell-gop-election-results-445524
  6. [6]Greg Sargent, “Georgia Republicans beg Trump to release them from his prison of lies,” Washington Post, December 1, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/01/georgia-republicans-beg-trump-release-them-his-prison-lies/; Christina Zhao, “Pro-Trump Rally Chants ‘Destroy the GOP,’ Boos Georgia ‘RINOs,’” Loeffler and Perdue,” Newsweek, December 12, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/pro-trump-rally-chants-destroy-gop-boos-georgia-rinos-loeffler-perdue-1554354
  7. [7]Marianne Levine and Melanie Zanona, “McConnell warns Senate Republicans against challenging election results,” Politico, December 15, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/15/mcconnell-gop-election-results-445524

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