The United States Senate began one of its shortest and most intense months on Tuesday, which will lead to the long electoral campaign of 2024, beginning with the urgency of avoiding a government shutdown due to lack of funds and confronting the growing clamor of a ‘ impeachment’ against Joe Biden. At the head of such delicate activities is an octogenarian leader who in just over a month has froze twice before the cameras, unable to articulate a word.
Mitch McConnell met yesterday with the senators of his party, the Republicans, behind closed doors to explain his fragility and convince them to support him as leader in the stage that is beginning. His position is not in doubt, because he will not have to revalidate it until 2026, but will he be able to guide the conservative formation to victory next year?
“He might be gone for 20 seconds a day, but the other 86,380 he does a damn good job,” Senator Mitch Ronnie said in offering his support. Ronnie had done the count of McConnell’s useful seconds, but his co-religionist Rand Paul had also done his homework by studying the statement from the Capitol doctor with which McConnell tried to silence speculation that he had suffered a stroke on air. “After several medical evaluations that included magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalogram and consultations with different neurologists,” Dr. Brian Monahan wrote in a brief statement that he has found no evidence that the senator has suffered any microinfarcts, and strokes, seizures, or anything related. with Parkinson’s, as has been speculated.
So what was the reason for that awkward mid-sentence silence that left his colleagues and collaborators looking for some credible excuse with which to take him away? The senator in whose hands the future of the party rests suffered a fall last March that kept him hospitalized for several days. “Occasional dizziness is not uncommon during concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration,” wrote the Capitol physician, who has not recommended any changes to the protocols he has been following since March.
conspiratorial whispers
Among the halls of the Capitol there are conspiratorial whispers from those who consider him too old for the task at hand. They are also the most radical voices in the party, who see McConnell as a traditional politician in the days of Trump, who is more friendly with Biden than with the party’s almost certain presidential candidate. “I’m a doctor and I can tell you that these are not symptoms of dehydration,” Paul protested. “When your eyes go off into the distance and you’re basically unconscious with your eyes open, it’s usually a neurological problem,” said the 60-year-old libertarian surgeon.
With the oldest Senate in the history of the United States, even the president of the Government, who is only a year younger than MConnell and faces the same doubts about his physical capacity, few dare to throw the first stone. If, at 81, McConnell has held the Kentucky seat for 38 years, California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, has been absent from the House for most of the year due to health problems, which has prevented her party, which has a small majority, confirm the nomination of judges.
They are not the only ones. Republican Charles Grassley is just three months her junior. Richard Shelby, 89 years old. James Inhofe, 88, Democrat Pat Leahy, 83. In this context, McConnell is a youngster whose elders are willing to ignore the infirmities of age, especially as long as he is able to raise record numbers like $50 million. dollars that groups close to him have brought to the party in August to finance the battle for the Senate in 2024.
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