Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was heckled and jeered by a home state crowd as he gave a speech at the annual “Fancy Farm Picnic.” During comments criticizing Kentucky’s Democrat Governor Andy Beshear, McConnell was confronted with extended boos and the chants of “Retire, Retire, Retire,” and “lost the Senate.”
The “boo bird” arrived during McConnell’s opening sentence and increased in volume as he went on.
In the end, even the public address system couldn’t help.
🚨Mitch McConnell gets drowned out by chants of “RETIRE” from his own constituents during a speech in Kentucky.
It’s over for him.
Step down.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 7, 2023
The Fancy Farm Picnic is one of Kentucky’s premier political events. The reception McConnell received may have included Democrats, but the intensity of the heckling showed that McConnell’s star has faded with Kentucky Republicans as well.
This humiliation comes on the heels of a Morning Consult poll that found McConnell the least respected member of the Senate (America’s Least Popular Senators Revealed In Least Surprising New Poll) and an episode where McConnell became disoriented and had to be escorted from the microphone during his press conference; see WATCH: Mitch McConnell Freezes Up, Has to Be Led Away During Presser.
To say McConnell has a checkered record is like saying Jeffrey Dahmer had unusual dietary preferences. He’s capable of doing great good for the nation and for the Republican party; for instance, it was McConnell’s guts that kept Merrick Garland from being appointed to the Supreme Court, and that rammed the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett through during the waning days of the Trump administration; see Let’s Not Forget It Was Mitch McConnell Who Helped Donald Trump With His Historic SCOTUS Appointments.
He’s also a duplicitous actor who engineered the election of a thoroughly taxidermized Thad Cochran ( see Thad Cochran: Unfaithful Husband. Untrustworthy Politician, Thad Cochran’s campaign denies he’s a lackwit, Thad Cochran loves him some pork… in a Biblical kind of way, and Thad Cochran Expected to Resign If He’s Ever Able to Realize He’s in the Senate). Now my colleague Neil McCabe reports that the McConnell endorsed and backed candidate in the lieutenant governor’s race was vice president and member of the board of directors of an abortion clinic; see Abortion Ad Shakes up Magnolia State GOP Primary; McDaniel Challenges Incumbent Lt. Gov. Hosemann.
And let’s not forget McConnell is one of the masters of Failure Theater. Failure Theater is when a politician, or politicians, makes a big fuss over a particular topic, like abortion, and promises to take action and never does but continues to use the issue for fundraising and campaigning; see McConnell Plans More Failure Theater on Iran and Mitch McConnell uses Failure Theater on Planned Parenthood.
I think McConnell bears a tremendous amount of responsibility for the fact that Joe Biden has a tame Senate to ram through the judicial nominations of over a hundred progressive activists and for Biden’s Supreme Court appointment.
It is clear that McConnell would much rather be a minority leader with a compliant caucus of bootlicks than a majority that included some men and women with spine and principles. It is my opinion that McConnell cares about power for the sake of power, not about power for what he can do with it.
My colleague Mike Miller makes a good point that McConnell is treated very differently than Joe Biden; see WATCH: CNN Anguishes Over 81-Year-Old McConnell’s Health, Ignores Same Issues With 80-Year-Old Biden. But I think that is irrelevant. McConnell’s sell-by date has long passed. He’s not physically or mentally up to using his Senate majority to prevent the Democrats from running amok. He’s taking up space and oxygen. He needs to retire.
