I honestly believe that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell fully realizes that African-American voters are as American as the 4th of July and that a recent slip-up indicating he thinks otherwise is a mind blip for a man quickly approaching his 80th birthday.
I also believe, even more fervently, that the Louisville lawmaker’s record on civil rights is becoming a horror story, that he has shown little regard or empathy for the struggles of African-Americans or other minority groups, that he uses them as pawns in his ruthless pursuit of political power, and his embarrassing defense of his verbatim words, approaching the old some-of-my-best-friend-are-Negroes standard, is nothing less than despicable.
Last week, after leading the Republican charge against a pair of bills intended to, among other things, protect African-American voting rights, which are taking a terrible and unjust mauling in several states, McConnell sought to rationalize his indefensible actions by insisting the proposed protections were unnecessary.
The NKyTribune’s Washington columnist Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com
“The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” McConnell told reporters after launching a filibuster that blocked the Senate from so much as debating the measures.
Parse the statement and it’s not illogical to conclude that McConnell believes Black voters aren’t real Americans.
Suffice to say McConnell has taken a rhetorical beating for his ill-considered statement. Charles Booker, the former Democratic state senator from Louisville, an African-American looking to unseat Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, in the fall, said, “I need you to understand that this is who Mitch McConnell is. Being Black doesn’t make you less of an American, no matter what this craven man thinks.”
Fair enough. McConnell’s concern for Black voters extends only as far as how they will impact on the next election while, on the other hand, as he said at the Aspen Institute in 2015, “my party does really good with white people, and I’m proud of that.”
But he’s not...