Post #4170977
2026-07-28 18:30 UTC
Replies (1)
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@jalefkowit@hachyderm.io 2026-07-28 18:44
A lot of people have been saying that McConnell's staff has been hiding his true condition to head off the possibility of a special election being called to replace him. I don't really buy that theory. There is no chance of a special election in Kentucky being won by anyone other than an insane Republican. From a party-political perspective, Republicans there have nothing to fear from holding an election. What I think is more likely is what we've seen with other gerontocratic pols (from both parties). A pol who has been in power for decades will have accumulated a staff whose entire career has been built around serving them. Those people are professional members of Team Mitch. While Mitch has power, they are important. If Mitch STOPS having power, they become irrelevant. All the other pols have their own hangers-on, they don't need to hire Mitch's. And the staffers have been in the Mitch McConnell business too long to start over. They don't know how to do anything else. So when the boss hits a wall, they all have one incentive: to prevent the world from figuring that out for as long as humanly possible #USPol