All You Need Is A Nickname

     Two weeks ago the United States Senate Intelligence Committee and Special Counsel Robert Mueller disclosed to the American public that Russia had a hand in steering our 2016 Presidential election, that the election systems in all 50 states had been combed by Russian cyberagents, and that at this very moment a vast network of Russian agents is infiltrating our 2020 election process.
       Within twenty-four hours of these revelations the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill calling for immediate measures to protect our elections from Russian meddling.
       Republican Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell killed the bill. No amount of reasoning, disputing, arguing, accusing, or pleading could move Mitch McConnell to put forward a vote for on the Senate floor to take action to protect our democracy. And there was nothing we the American people could do about it.
      Until one clever American came up with a simple but brilliant idea. He pinned Mitch McConnell with the nickname “Moscow Mitch.”    
​            It was MSNBC news commentator Joe Scarborough,

…who criticized Senator McConnell for blocking Congress from acting to protect our vote from foreign influence, accused him of benefiting politically from that influence, and subsequently called him “Moscow Mitch.”

     Now, Mitch McConnell likely didn’t care one way or the other about Joe Scarborough’s criticism or accusations, the same criticism and accusations he was hearing - and likewise didn’t care about - from everyone except for his own party loyalists. But those two words – “Moscow Mitch” -  got to the Senator in a way that all the thousands and thousands of words previously directed at him on Russian cyberattacks against his country couldn’t even begin to.
    “Moscow Mitch” has gotten under Mitch McConnell’s skin immensely, especially since it began trending on Twitter along with the hashtag #MoscowMitchMcTraitor. McConnell even whined about it on the Senate floor, saying, “I was called unpatriotic, un-American and essentially treasonous.”
         One could practically hear the violins weeping in the background.    

     But “Moscow Mitch” has been sticking to McConnell so far: Singer/Composer Ben Folds wrote a song called “Moscow Mitch,”

​...and over the weekend a church picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky at which McConnell spoke,

...was infiltrated by protesters holding signs and chanting “Moscow Mitch.”

     Then a few days ago, while he was griping to the Senate about the unfairness of his new moniker, McConnell grudgingly said, “I’m sure all of us will be open to discussing further steps Congress, the executive branch, the states, and the private sector might take to defend our elections against foreign interference.”
     That statement from Mitch McConnell, pallid and wishy-washy as it was, has been interpreted as McConnell moving an inch on territory upon which he previously refused to budge. And he hasn’t moved that inch because he suddenly developed and inch-worth of concern for the welfare of the country he was elected to lead; it’s because he’s now worried that if “Moscow Mitch” sticks he won’t be re-elected next year.
     But an inch is only an inch, and Mitch McConnell likely needs to be pushed many more inches before he'll allow an election protection bill on the Senate floor.
     So let’s all make sure “Moscow Mitch” sticks to Mitch McConnell like Crazy Glue. Let's make sure this handle lives, thrives, follows and worries Moscow Mitch everywhere he goes. Everybody say it every chance you get. Post #MoscowMitchMcTraitor on your Facebook page. Post it on your Twitter page, Instagram page, and Pinterest Fail page. Get together with your friends and rent a billboard. Rent three outside your town.

​     (That strategy has been known to produce results).

    Don’t relent on Moscow Mitch until he opens the Senate for debate on a bill to protect our elections.
     In two words we’ve been handed the means to fight for our American democracy, free from the grip of a tyrant,

​...one of whose forebears once promised to bury us without firing a shot, 

...and who is now, thanks to the traitorous greed of an elected American official, closer to that goal than ever.
    Let’s fight.
     Epilogue:
    Three day ago there were two more mass murders in this country, one in El Paso, Texas and one in Dayton, Ohio.
     Thirty one graves new graves to be dug.

     And still Mitch McConnell refuses to allow a vote in the Senate on any bill that might prevent death by gunshot wound from continuing to be an American epidemic.
   And so a second hashtag has been added on to Mitch McConnell’s name of shame: #MassacreMitch.
    As for me, I would have chosen Mass Murder Mitch, but Massacre Mitch is already trending.
    And so every day I intend to post #MoscowMitchMcTraitor and #MassacreMitch on my Twitter page.
     You do what you can.

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/moscow-mitch-mcconnell.html

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/politics/sherrod-brown-mitch-mcconnell-mass-shootings-guns-congress-cnntv/index.html