Mitch McConnell refuses to call out Donald Trump’s ridiculous and harmful assertions of widespread voter fraud.
Mitch McConnell must end this nonsense.
McConnell, the Senate majority leader from Kentucky, must take a stand against Donald Trump's irresponsible claims of vote rigging and election fraud. They are untrue, unproven and dangerous for the rule of law. McConnell, as the top establishment Republican, will do the country a great service if he calls it what it is: inaccurate fear-mongering.
But of course, Yertle McTurtle has completely forgotten how to snap. Instead he’s pulled his head, way, way back into his shell—all the way to the rear—and become the the only man in the country with no opinion on Donald Trump. No opinion about Trump's campaign. No opinion about whether Trump is qualified to be president. No opinion in May, or June, or July. Still no opinion, right up to October.
But that’s okay, because Paul Ryan is right there with him in allowing Donald Trump to tear at the foundations of democracy—in order to help himself.
Instead of disavowing this absurdity outright, Republican leaders sit by in spineless silence. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, are the two most powerful Republicans in the country and should be willing to put the national interest above their own.
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Both know full well that there is no “rigging,” and yet between them they have managed one tepid response to Mr. Trump’s outrageous accusations: “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results,” Mr. Ryan’s spokeswoman said, “and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity.”
Ryan has spent the season engaged in a Trump two-step, one in which he pretends to condemn Trump, while never failing to endorse him.
McConnell’s tactic is simpler. He just hides.
“If any of you are here are thinking I’m going to elaborate on the presidential debate, let me disabuse you of that notion,” McConnell told a crowd assembled Monday by the Danville-Boyle County Chamber of Commerce.
Hides.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Monday told the audience at an event held by the Danville-Boyle County Chamber of Commerce in Kentucky that he would not discuss Donald Trump.
And keeps hiding.
“Look, to avoid wasting our time here this is not something I’m going to discuss today, the implications of the presidential race on the Senate,” McConnell said on Thursday.
But while Paul Ryan is willing to throw out a luke-warm statement, and Mitch McConnell has his head so far down in his shell he can kiss … his tail, neither of them is willing to get in front of an issue that has consequence for the nation at every level of government.
The fact is that voter fraud occurs at such a minuscule level that it hardly ever affects a race. Moreover, it does not happen in the way that Trump and other Republicans seem to think: through in-person impersonation or individuals voting multiple times. The only proven fraud that exists, infrequent as it is, entails absentee balloting or paying off poll workers, typically to sway a local election. Voter ID laws, which Trump and others champion as a cure for our elections, would do nothing to solve that kind of fraud. …
McConnell enjoys the privilege of having the word "Leader" before his title. For the good of the country, it is time for him to live up to that title and be a leader right now.
Republican leadership … is an oxymoron. Or is that oxymoran?