This is the second part of a list cataloguing the most despicable people in America. To no one's surprise it consists entirely of politicians.
Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell III (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader.
I didn't put the Archdemon in the first list because I wanted to include him at the head of this list of other deniers of science, logic, decency, truth, goodness, and the American way. Their only allegiance is to their political party and their own deluded world view. They have their own little circle of Hell, as it were.
Mitch would have been the perfect snake oil salesman. He can lie all day long, switch policy positions at the drop of a hat, deny statements he made just yesterday--or even ten minutes ago.
He's an adept at what George Orwell in 1984 called Newspeak: Saying one thing while doing the polar opposite. Claiming to be fighting for peoples' rights while undermining the Constitution, for example.
He's a dyed-in-the-wool racist. At the beginning of President Obama's first term he said that his priority was to make Obama a one-term president. The GOP order of the day was always and everywhere to block Obama--not because he was in the opposition party, but because he was Black. McConnell stunned the nation by holding a Supreme Court nomination hostage for a full year. Yet four years later he forgot the spurious reasoning behind that act ("a nomination in the last year of a president's term should be held for the next president") and nominated Amy Coney Barrett obscenely soon after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He has no sense of shame and he has no loyalty to the Constitution.
Gregory Wayne Abbott (R-TX), Governor of Texas, Trump minion, the bigoted reactionary leader of the Southern charge back into Jim Crow days--and beyond, if he had his way. He has sponsored and supported legislation that has no purpose other than to keep people of color and people with disabilities from voting. He has also signed a Draconian anti-abortion law that allows private citizens who think a woman has had an abortion to sue her and anyone who assisted her, down to and including any person who provided transportation to the clinic. By my reckoning the two laws together violate Article IV, section 2 and five separate Amendments to the Constitution, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and Roe v. Wade, which is still in force. Abbot is at very least a traitor to the Constitution.
Ronald Dion DeSantis (R-FL), Governor of Florida and another Trump minion, is following his master's example. According to the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, throughout 2020 DeSantis "suppressed unfavorable facts, dispensed dangerous misinformation,
dismissed public health professionals, and promoted the views of
scientific dissenters who supported the governor’s approach to the
disease." DeSantis is currently battling and suing school systems over the adoption of mask mandates, which he has specifically outlawed. He claims he just wants parents to be free to decide whether their kids go masked to school. In reality he's a power-drunk bully having pissing contests with school boards. He is no friend of children--or of their parents, for all that.
Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem (R-SD), Governor of South Dakota, is another follower of the Trump way. Prior to the pandemic she was a typical far right-wing politician, opposed to legalization of marijuana, abortion, and in favor of carrying firearms without a license. When the pandemic arrived she followed the Trump line to the letter, denying the science, spreading disinformation, implementing no safeguards, and using millions of dollars of pandemic relief funds to support tourism during a surge in COVID-19. She supported the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which resulted in hundreds of new cases spread across 29 states; there were similar results following the 2021 rally. Like Trump, Noem just doesn't care.
In each of the headlines about governors my fingers slipped and spelled "governot" the first time. Sometimes typos can be instructive.
New subject next post--stay tuned.
--- Diogenes, 9/14/21