Tag: judicial appointments
Trump’s Mitch: McConnell Is The Most Disliked Senator

Trump’s Mitch: McConnell Is The Most Disliked Senator

Mitch McConnell is the most unpopular person in the entire United States Senate.

new poll from Morning Consult found that the Republican majority leader from Kentucky has the highest disapproval rating out of the 100 senators in the legislative body. McConnell has a 50 percent disapproval rating, with only 36 percent of respondents saying they approve of the job he is doing.

McConnell is the only senator in the entire survey whose home state voters registered a disapproval rate as high as 50 percent.

McConnell recently announced that he would be running for reelection in 2020 for his sixth election since first winning in 1984.

He has been a close ally of Trump, shepherding in unpopular legislation like the Republican tax scam while also attempting to kill health insurance for millions.

McConnell has often said that one of his proudest accomplishment was blocking President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, essentially stealing the seat until Trump could fill it with a right-wing ideologue whose record was one of hostility to workers and voting rights.

McConnell also blocked more than 100 other judicial appointments when Obama was president, and has spent Trump’s two years in office ramming through as many far-right judges as he can. He recently changed the Senate rules to be able to push those nominations through even faster.

McConnell recently vowed that if Trump lose his reelection campaign in 2020 to a Democrat, McConnell would block their agenda, even if it has the support of the majority of American voters.

“If I’m still the majority leader in the Senate [in 2020], think of me as the Grim Reaper,” McConnell told voters in Owensboro, Kentucky, on Monday. “None of that stuff is going to pass.”

McConnell has never been shy about admitting that he doesn’t care what the American people want. He is focused on his own agenda and nothing — not a Democratic president, not an election that sweeps the GOP out of power, not polling that shows opposition to his actions — will stop him in his quest to further his own ideological goals.

That has allowed McConnell to accomplish his goals of remaking the judiciary, but it hasn’t helped him with voters at home who might decide next year not to return him to office if he continues to focus on his own interests instead of theirs.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

IMAGE: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) talks to the media after a weekly Senate Republican luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 19, 2016. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas