The 21st Century's Second Worst American Villain?

Starting with Don Jr, the Trumpists lost their collective shit when Greta Thunberg was named 2019 person of the year. Trump really, really, really wanted a legitimate Time Magazine cover to put in his golf club houses celebrating his illegitimate presidency. But would he have approved of someone not him but more like him than Greta? Probably not. But what about MoscowMitch?

Walter Shapiro made a good case for why it is the elderly Kentucky closet queen and #1 Trump enabler who should have been named person of the year-- like in a bad person of the year... like the way Hitler was in 1938 or Stalin was in both 1939 and 1942, or Nixon in both 1970 and 1971. Oh, wait... I got that wrong. Shapiro wants to name MoscowMitch the Person of the Decade, not the person of the year.

If there was a moment that defined the decade, it was a Capitol Hill meeting in early September 2016 when top Obama administration officials (including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and FBI director James Comey) briefed congressional leaders on the Russian hacking of the election.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in particular, challenged the intelligence findings and refused to sign a joint letter singling out Vladimir Putin. Instead, in late September, the four party leaders in Congress sent a mealy-mouthed letter to the states warning against unnamed “malefactors” who were “seeking to use cyberattacks” to disrupt the elections.

Confronted with an unprecedented foreign attack on our elections (from Wikileaks data dumps to spreading inflammatory misinformation on social media), the Obama administration chose caution over forceful action. As the Washington Post summarized in a 2017 article, “Obama’s approach often seemed reducible to a single imperative: Don’t make things worse.”

In many ways, McConnell is the Person of the Decade when it comes to the destruction of democratic norms. From cynically depriving Merrick Garland of a confirmation vote for a seat on the Supreme Court to turning the Senate into a no-dissent rubber stamp for a Republican president, McConnell symbolizes the vicious partisanship of a dismal decade... Trump’s reign of error has only been made possible by the cowardice of the Republican Party.

Other than lowering taxes for the super-wealthy and gutting government regulation, every principle that once defined the GOP has been repudiated by Trump and his congressional enablers. A belief in the Constitution, separation of powers, balanced budgets, skepticism about Moscow, hatred of North Korea, free trade and the value of decorum and civility: All were thrown overboard to satisfy Trump’s ego needs and unbridled id.

Is McConnell's toxicity enough to help bring down Republican senators like Susan Collins (ME), Cory Gardner (CO), Martha McSally (AZ), Thom Tillis (NC), Joni Ernst (IA), Dan Sullivan (AK), David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler (GA) and Steve Daines (MT)-- while winning the Democrats an open Seante seat in Kansas? Seems impossible-- but it was more impossible a couple of months ago. What about fellow closet queen Lindsey Graham? Impossible?