Mitch McConnell: Going, Going... Gone

To be a Republican leader in the Age of Trump, you just have to be alive (sort of).

Is Mitch McConnell alive or just mostly alive? Does it even matter?

We have now reached a tipping point in the Weekend at Bernies-ification of the Republican Party. For months, the American public has witnessed the President’s slow-rolling medical drama: his house cat-level napping, his increasingly necrotic hands, his public confusion about very basic facts, like whether we are at war with Iran or Japan (hey they sound a lot alike if you write limericks for a living), the numerous, mysterious trips to the hospital to see 22 doctors at a time.

And sometimes I wonder just how uncomfortable this must be for Republicans, pretending Trump is well enough to lead the country, when literally everything he says or does—including and especially sinking the country into a disastrous war that has roiled the global energy markets and shows no sign of resolution—suggests otherwise. But then I remember that the Republican party does not actually care if someone is well enough to serve, they just need someone to be alive enough. Or alive-ish.

Case in point: Mitch McConnell. It tracks that one of the most nefarious operators in the upper chamber (cough: Merrick Garland) would be secretive and withholding, even in decline. I am not versed enough in the dark web to relay some of the more insane theories pertaining to McConnell’s current status, but quite obviously, he is not well. He is probably still alive—but the degree to which he is able to perform even basic tasks like talking, reading or writing… is unclear. The proof of life photographs that McConnell’s office keeps releasing (nice try, bros) do nothing to allay concerns that the former Majority Leader is essentially, if not practically, in a vegetative state. His vacant, hollow-eyed stare is convincing precisely no one, especially given McConnell’s record this year: he’s missed 36 consecutive votes since he was first hospitalized for pneumonia on June 14th, and 56 votes since January 2026. This week, McConnell (er, his office) announced he is not yet ready to be released from rehab.

As far as the institution of the Senate, this is all bad—the decline, the duplicity, etc. But in practical terms, what does it really matter? Last week, we all witnessed Trump’s human puppet Director of National Intelligence nominee Jay Clayton choke on his own tongue when asked who won the 2020 election. Director of National UN-intelligence, amirite? What is the meaningful difference between Todd Blanche and a zucchini as Attorney General? Neither one of them will put up any fight if and when Trump decides to invalidate election results in Fulton County this November… or seizes voting machines in Wayne County. If Blanche publicly “defers” to ICE as its agents shoot and kill unarmed residents who aren’t even the target of their raids… what exactly would Blanche do if Trump ordered the DoJ to invalidate the votes of tens of thousands of people of color? At least they get to live! he might reason.

The stoogery on display among the Senate Republicans who will soon approve Clayton and Blanche to sit atop the country’s intelligence and justice systems, who have already showered Trump’s roving, racist death squads with billions of dollars and be-cucked themselves during his idiotic, deadly campaign in Iran, might as well be on sick leave or otherwise staring glassy-eyed into the middle distance. Men like Tom Cotton and John Kennedy and Chuck Grassley may still be talking to the press and strolling down the hallways, but for all intents and purposes, they might as well be in hospital gowns, right next to Mitch McConnell, mutely doing the job of senator—mostly by doing nothing much at all.