Completion Date: 18 June 2019
Medium: Paint & ink on cardboard
Dimensions: 30 x 40 inches
Mitch McConnell has frustrated House Democrats by systematically blocking Senate votes so far on the lengthening list of bills they have passed, from gun control to additional protections for patients with preexisting health problems.
But McConnell’s blockade faces a new challenge as the House turns to a series of bills meant to fight foreign interference in the 2020 election. Those measures, aimed at defending fundamental American institutions from foreign subversion, may be tougher for the Kentucky Republican to portray as partisan overreach than the bills the House has passed so far. And that could make them an irresistible force that strains his overall strategy of preventing action on any House legislation.
McConnell’s decision to methodically bar consideration of any of the House priorities already looms as a defining gamble in the GOP’s effort to maintain its Senate majority in the 2020 election. He has leaned into his role as obstacle, portraying a Republican-controlled Senate as the last line of defense against a Democratic “socialist agenda” and calling himself the “Grim Reaper” for their legislative plans.
“I am indeed the ‘Grim Reaper’ when it comes to the socialist agenda that they have been ginning up over the House with overwhelming Democratic support, and sending it over to America,” he declared in an interview on Fox News Channel on 14 June 2019.