Mitch McConnell Campaign Posts Images of Opponent's Name on Tombstone, and White Men Sexually Assaulting AOC

Sen. Mitch McConnell's campaign posted
 an image of his electoral opponent's tombstone
hours after the El Paso massacre at which
dozens were killed and wounded by a
racist Trump supporter.

McConnell campaign spokesperson mocks objection to icon of dead opponent in wake of racist mass killing

 

Updated - Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Kentucky) campaign is off to a roaring start.

Hours after the El Paso massacre committed by an emboldened Donald Trump fan, Trump's ally, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Kentucky), and his campaign sent out its response in images from Kentucky's annual political event, the Fancy Farm Picnic held last weekend.

The Mitch McConnell campaign tweeted out a mock graveyard of grave markers that included McConnell's 2020 election opponent, Marine Amy McGrath (D).

"RIP Amy McGrath, November 3, 2020," reads one tombstone.

Writes the Marine, Amy McGrath (D): "Hours after the El Paso shooting, Mitch McConnell proudly tweeted this photo. I find it so troubling that our politics have become so nasty and personal that the Senate Majority Leader thinks it's appropriate to use imagery of the death of a political opponent (me) as messaging."

Ms. McGrath's tweet is below:

Hours after the El Paso shooting, Mitch McConnell proudly tweeted this photo. I find it so troubling that our politics have become so nasty and personal that the Senate Majority Leader thinks it's appropriate to use imagery of the death of a political opponent (me) as messaging. pic.twitter.com/2x5kO5jwPi

— Amy McGrath (@AmyMcGrathKY) August 5, 2019

In case Kentucky voters did not get the message what Republicans stand for, six Mitch McConnell volunteers dressed in Team Mitch t-shirts posed for pictures of the young men groping, choking and assaulting an image of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

One young man grabbed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez' mouth in a simulated act depicting violent control over a woman prevalent in rape culture in which a woman is ordered to 'suck it.'

The image and Cortez' response is below:

Hey @senatemajldr - these young men look like they work for you.

Just wanted to clarify: are you paying for young men to practice groping choking members of Congress w/ your payroll, or is this just the standard culture of #TeamMitch?

Thanks. https://t.co/ysRJuwonUx

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 6, 2019

The McConnell's campaign's response made light of the simulated assault and mocked criticism: Team Mitch "in no way condones any aggressive, suggestive, or demeaning act toward life-sized cardboard cutouts of any gender," (Huffington Post).

Sexual assault and aggravated assaults are crimes now normalized in the Republican Party.

Reports Huffington: "Some of the same men also appeared in a photo on the official "Team Mitch" Instagram account for the Fancy Farm picnic, holding aloft cutout faces of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch."

Kavanaugh was exposed as a rapist during his Senate confirmation hearings.

In the faces of the young Kentucky Republicans in Team Mitch's photos, it is easy to see a young Brett Kavanaugh, and other violent youthful Republicans who don't know enough not to treat fellow human beings as less than human.  

Sexual assault, mass shootings and other violence do not come from nowhere.

Today, these crimes are legitimatized by a major American political party, the Republican Party, that  mocks the idea that cultivating dehumanization of political opponents is unacceptable and indecent.