Mitch McConnell

He is now, as I have seen repeated online, Schrodinger’s Turtle. A man both alive and dead because nobody of integrity has yet peered inside the hospital room (or should that be morgue?) in which former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now lies. He is now both a man and the rumor of a man. Which is it? Americans deserve to know.

Imagine if you just disappeared from your job for a month. Would you still expect to retain it? Would it be an insult for your employers to ask where the hell you are, or to ask for some proof that you’re recovering in the hospital from some ailment? Would it be enough to send your friend into work to tell your boss, “It’s ok. I talked to him for 20 minutes and he’s all good”?

Because we live in such a bewildering hurricane of bullc–p, it’s easy to get lost in ambiguity, half-truths, and misleading statements. This is not one of those times. There are three options on the table here: either McConnell is alive and recuperating, in which case it ought to be easy enough for him to send a freaking Snapchat; he’s dead and not recuperating, in which case the law demands a special election; he’s in a vegetative state and unable to fulfill his duties, in which case the law demands a special election.

So why don’t we know which it is?

Like everything with McConnell, the reason for this is as obvious as it is infuriating. Kentucky Republicans are almost certainly trying to drag out McConnell’s proof-of-life as long as possible in order to deny Kentucky voters the opportunity to hold an election to replace him. If they are able to drag this nonsense out until August 3, the law requires his seat remain vacant until after the midterms.

It’s exactly the kind of move McConnell himself would have orchestrated if he were alive. Or, perhaps he is alive and is, in fact, orchestrating it. What a perfect coda to a life of law-bending in order to achieve political ends.

By all accounts, McConnell has only cared about power. Think back on his career and try to identify a single issue McConnell championed beyond remaking the Supreme Court in his image. You cannot because, as he rotted in his cushy senatorial office, his appetite for anything beyond gorging himself on copious amounts of partisanship faded away to nothing.

For McConnell, politics were only ever a sport. A means to accumulate chits. He was a Washington lizard—as much as he was Trump’s “old crow”—sunning himself on the warm stones of other people’s money. If he ever believed in anything, it’s now hard to know.

He began his political career as a pro-choice Republican moderate. He was pro-union. He supported the Civil Rights movement. When the party moved right, so did he. He ended his political career as a pro-life, anti-union, anti-Civil Rights crusader. Political about-faces are not unheard of, but McConnell’s is one for the ages. Which was his authentic self? We will never know, and, frankly, to quote a Southern gentleman of another age, I don’t give a damn.

In 1984, McConnell launched his senatorial career with a TV ad attempting to “track down” the then-Democratic incumbent with bloodhounds, criticizing the lawmaker for “skipping votes.” I don’t know if irony is dead among Kentucky Republicans, but their leader certainly appears to be.

The current state of Mitch McConnell is only the latest exhibit in the case against our flailing democratic system. It’s hard to know where to begin: The Electoral College? Gerrymandering? Dark money? But really, the idea that we deserve to know whether our elected leaders are even alive should be a no-brainer for both parties—at least, that is, for those who aren’t brain-dead.

The point isn’t that Mitch McConnell owes us a hospital bed selfie. It’s that public office isn’t private employment (and private employment would have fired his ass long ago). This isn’t your Gampy recovering quietly after passing a gallstone. This is one of the most powerful men in the country. His health isn’t gossip mill grist, it’s a matter of public administration.

How is it that we’ve decided that one of the hundred most powerful elected officials can just kind of vanish into a haze of friendly assurances, vague statements, and unnamed aides insisting everything is fine.

No. Show us.