McConnell Is Literally Making The Pandemic Worse

Kentucky hasn't been hit too hard by the pandemic yet-- just 8,951 confirmed cases-- 2,004 cases per million. The residents are lucky that they have a governor willing to listen to public health experts and not a crackpot right-wing fringe motivated by Trumpist incompetence, personal ambition and dysfunction. The state's senior senator-- actually the junior one too-- aren't taking the pandemic seriously. And the senior senator matters-- he's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. a self-described Grim Reaper for anything meant to help ordinary working families. Having become a multimillion by marrying the daughter of a Chinese shipping magnate who has been bribing him on behalf of both his own business and the government of China for years, he sure isn't feeling the urgency and anxiety most working families are feeling today.

Yesterday he told reporters in Louisville that there would probably be a fifth coronavirus relief bill "in the next month or so... It will not be the $3 trillion bill the House passed the other day. But there's still a likelihood that more will be needed." McConnell only has one interest right now-- indemnifying Big Business from law suits resulting from reopening too quickly in a way that sickens or even kills their employees and customers.

No wonder Bess Levin, writing for Vanity Fair last month, reminded readers to not forget to blame McConnell for the pandemic crisis. "More than anyone," she wrote, "the Senate majority leader enabled Trump, whose reckless leadership has made the covid-19 crisis much worse than it had to be. Something you’ve probably heard once or twice over the last month is that the coronavirus crisis in the United States is significantly worse than it had to be thanks to the leadership style of Donald Trump, the pillars of which include ignoring experts, not reading his briefing materials, and thinking that he, a man who can’t pronounce the word “Nevada,” is some kind of genius. Applied to the current situation, that meant downplaying the deadly virus even as it engulfed China and other parts of the world; refusing to “do anything” throughout January and February, despite dire warnings coming from his own officials; and not pushing for testing because he thought the numbers would hurt his reelection chances. And listening to the advice of his equally dim son-in-law. And focusing on the stock market instead of the actual health crisis. And calling COVID-19 “fake news” as recently as March 9. So yes, when you think about who deserves the most blame for the United States surpassing Italy for the country with the highest number of coronavirus deaths, the answer is obviously Donald Trump. But let us not also forget to spread some of that blame around to his neck-pouched enabler, Mitch McConnell... [There is an] extremely convincing argument that the Senate majority leader‘s decision to let Trump rule unchecked, in order to preserve his own standing, will be viewed one of the chief causes of thousands of American deaths."