I haven't paid as much attention to McConnell, but Biden and Cochran's later years in office were borderline elder abuse. Even if they would have signed off on it when they were completely lucid, I'm not sure how much better that makes it.
Yep.
Maybe in the moment the people closest to these politicians think the person can still do what they were elected to do. Or maybe the close aids are all just wanting to hold onto their jobs by any means necessary.
- Feinstein in CA was clearly not in good enough health to legislate in the manner we expect legislators to act. Her shingles hospitalization aside, she was not mentally/cognitively great for the last few years.
- The June debate in '24 showed Biden was clearly not up for running the free world for another 4 years.
- The last few years of Cochran's time in office was filled with physical health issues and mental confusion and lapses.
- Trump's mental decline is clear through his constant inability to cite correct statistics, frequent mis-statements about history, late night unhinged and rants that include countless lies, and his rambling off-topic speeches that often include baseless accusations.
With those 4 examples over the last decade in mind, whatever is going on with McConnell is like another level.
- The multiple freezing incidents from a few years ago are straight up insane to watch. It is genuinely brutal to see the full 30 seconds, or whatever it is, of him being just...frozen. Unable to talk or move. Like a full reset of a buggy glitchy laptop.
- He has fallen like half a dozen times in the last few years, and some are on camera. While that isnt necessarily a cognitive issue, if someone cant safely walk on their own but isnt using an assisted device...I question the judgement of the person and their staff. To me, it points to a person who should not be a US Senator because of their judgement and motives arent in the right place.
- McConnell finally announced he wouldnt seek yet another term...but chose to stay for nearly 2 more years. That is a selfish decision and once again points to poor judgement and motives by him and/or his staff. You phrased it as being elder abuse and that seems like a fair determination.
People who are hospitalized for medical issues are generally not what I am frustrated with, to be clear.
It would be interesting to see if there could be a way to give waivers to legislators recovering from documented health issues so they can vote remotely. There is benefit to requiring in-person voting, but conceptually it also seems unnecessarily penal for people that are recovering from an illness.