“Protestors Sore Losers, Senator McConnell Says.”
That was the morning headline in Covington, Kentucky where Mitch McConnell had addressed the local chamber of commerce.
Hundreds of protestors had clamored outside a local hotel where McConnell was speaking, to voice their opposition to the new administration and the Republican controlled congress. McConnell said he heard them…he just didn’t seem overly interested in what they had to say.
“I’m sorry they fell that way. The fundamental problem is, they’re having a hard time getting over the election. They have every right to speak out. We’re all hearing them. I don’t think there is any lack of understanding on how they feel about the issue.”
McConnell was echoing what we have heard from Republican voters and lawmakers across the country. ‘We won! Get over it.”
But Democrats aren’t getting over it. In fact Democrats are organizing grass roots opposition movements throughout the country. What started as a frustrated voter’s call to arms plea on the internet has in just a few short weeks exploded into a passionate movement that has at least two opposition organizations in every congressional district in the country. A groundswell of opposition best exemplified by the Million Women March held the day after Trump’s inauguration. What organizers hoped would be a respectable sized march on the Washington Mall exploded into an organic international movement. Over 1 million marchers showed up in Washington D. C. with 5 million more taking to the streets across the nation and the world. A lone plea to be heard resulted in a movement that crossed seven continents.
Following what has become known as the “Indivisible” roadmap on how to effectively bring about change; voters have stormed their local elected officials’ offices and homes to voice their concerns about everything from repealing Obamacare to banning Muslims from entering the country. Congressional town hall meetings once sparsely attended now overflow with angry constituents.
The press has caught on. Elected officials willing to hold town hall meetings are caught on camera as they struggle in real time with the consequences of their decisions. Others, having watched their colleagues being harassed and harried refuse to appear in public lest they suffer the same fate.
Mitch McConnell’s dismissal of these events is short sighted. Perhaps the good senator might recall the Tea Party Movement that rose up in the wake of Barak Obama’s election to the presidency.
Obama had won a huge victory in 2008; pulling in 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173 and winning the popular vote by almost 8 million. Undaunted, the Tea Party movement rose up in opposition. That movement was dismissed by Democrats in much the same way that McConnell is dismissing today’s “sore losers.”
In spite of the naysayers the Tea Party became a force to be reckoned with. In 2010 they primaried Republican lawmakers who would dare to compromise far right leaning conservative values and work with the president. They even took down the third highest ranking member of the Republican Caucus. As their numbers grew so did their influence.
In 2012, in spite of Obama’s 332-206 Electoral College victory over Romney, the Tea Party numbers grew to the extent that though still a minority within the Republican Caucus they controlled the agenda.
On September 25, 2015 the Tea Party movement drove Speaker John Boehner into retirement. And on November 8, 2016 this far right wing of the Republican Party thumbed its nose at the Republican establishment and helped elect Donald Trump to the White House.
I do not condone the Tea Party’s tactics and I most certainly do not agree with their politics. But one cannot argue with their resolve and effectiveness in achieving their political goals. They stopped a hugely popular president in his tracts.
It is also important to note that the Tea Party and Donald Trump achieved their victories with zero help from McConnell and his cadre of moderate elites. Trump and the Tea Party owe McConnell nothing.
That said, Trump is vulnerable. He comes into the presidency with the lowest approval rating in recorded history. His defeat in the popular vote should not be underestimated. He does not have a mandate. Against his weak performance we have the emergence of a grass roots uprising that even in its infancy dwarfs anything the Tea Party could ever dream of developing.
Mitch McConnell might want to think twice before offhandedly dismissing this progressive protest movement. He might do well to recall the evolution of the Tea Party and the power it holds over the caucus that he supposedly leads.
Mitch McConnell has dismissed this progressive protest as nothing more than sore losers having a hard time getting over the election.
Perhaps McConnell is whistling past the graveyard.
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