WASHINGTON WATCH: Mitch McConnell's Gun 'Deal,' and What Is Really Going On
Republican is frightened his visions for another "red wave" are disappearing before his eyes
Within hours of the slaughter at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which was driven by the criminally negligent access to guns which exists in this country, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was up on social media with his latest variation on the unctuous — and ultimately meaningless — Republican mantra which predictably follows each and every mass shooting in the United States.
But its meaninglessness — for McConnell and other Republicans — is the feature, not the bug.
It allows Republicans to appear as if they care — as if they actually cared about their fellow human beings — without actually having to do so.
For Republicans these calls for “thoughts and prayers” is just another social platitude — the equivalent of a casual “bless you” at a sneeze before plunging on without further care in whatever conversation is transpiring at the moment.
Republicans want Americans de-sensitized to these mass shootings, that way one massacre just slides to the next without any substantial expectations that anything is actually going to change.
Gun control, or gun safety, is anathema to Republicans and they would just as well prefer keep such talk out of the national consciousness or conversation.
However, the outcry over the one-two step of twin mass murders — first at a Buffalo NY grocery store, and just about a week later at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas — seems to threaten those best-laid right-wing plans.
From Sen Chris Murphy's emotional speech on the Senate floor just hours after the Uvalde gunman cut down some 21 children and their teachers, with its impassioned throughline — “What are we doing?” — to the unusually tough commentary from the likes of late-night host Stephen Colbert and others, the Texas schoolhouse murders threaten to potentially become a rallying point and perhaps even a turning point on the part of American voters to actually expect solutions and new gun policy.
That would be Mitch McConnell's worst nightmare because this is actually an election year.
Republicans and their midterm dreams
Mitch McConnell goes to sleep every night dreaming about the November elections delivering another midterm tsunami which will return Republicans to a powerful majority in Congress.
After all, President Biden's approval ratings remain mired in unpopular territory and he and other Republicans continue to do everything that they can to stir American outrage over inflation and aim all of that anger squarely at the Democrats who hold only the most tenuous of majorities in both the House or Senate.
However, McConnell is also a realist — and no one would call him stupid.
So McConnell's outward aggression at attacking Democrats has had to be tempered at least a little by apprehension at just how slim his party’s lead has been.
Biden's approval ratings are some 13.6 points underwater, and have been for some time.
So conventional political wisdom holds that the Republican lead among voters on the so-called generic ballot question should at least be somewhat comparable to the dissatisfaction in the incumbent president.
It's not.
Nowhere close.
As you can see from this graphic from FiveThirtyEight dot com, Republicans hold a much more paltry 2.2-point advantage.
That's basically in the margin for error.
And, as much as he goes to sleep with those visions of a Republican Congress taking over in January, he's as equally woken in the dead of night with nagging worry over these meager poll numbers.
And recent events threaten to turn to a full-on nightmare, and McConnell knows it.
Already he has to have become twitchy in private over the fallout from the leaked Supreme Court draft which threatens to overturn a constitutional right to abortion services which is supported by large majorities of American voters.
And, despite the very best — his sincerest sounding — “thoughts and prayers” that he could muster, the legitimate outcry from American voters threatens to upend decades of quiet Republican inaction on guns.
Worse: Voters might even remember Uvalde in November when they cast ballots — and they might actually listen to Democrats, late-night hosts and others who are telling them to actually vote for gun-safety candidates.
And that's why McConnell mumbled something Thursday about asking Republican Sen John Cornyn, of Texas, to talk to Democrats about finding a “bipartisan solution” to end gun violence.
To Republicans who are absolutists when it comes to gun availability, there's really no such thing.
Chances are there will never be such a solution to come from these talks
McConnell isn't really interested in gun policymaking.
Once again, he just wants to make it look like Republicans care, ahead of everyone going to vote in November.
And McConnell's even praying that one of the Democrats says something stupid, so that he can have a pretext to call off all those gun talks, and go on TV to say something like, “Look, we Republicans really tried. We really wanted good gun policy but there go those godless Democrat communists again — it's all their fault. And, by the way, have you noticed how high gas prices are today?”
Don't let them. Don't let Republicans lie to you.
Remember that abortion rights are on the ballot. Remember the dead in Buffalo. Remember all those dead kids in Uvalde.
And remember how you should vote.
Be Mitch McConnell's worst nightmare come true.
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