Mitch

I find myself in a weird place of dissonance with this whole Mitch McConnell thing. I’ve always been a very empathy driven person and typically feel sadness for anyone struggling, even if they are not that great of a person. I often see how people are a product of their own upbringings/systems/generations/etc and feel some level of empathy and understanding without excusing.
Despite that being my natural tendency, I find myself giggling at some of the memes that have surfaced after his episode of freezing up, and have shared a couple of memes to friends. My initial reaction to the video was to feel a bit sad, but I quickly found myself somewhere between sad, angry, and darkly humored.
-Sad that an elderly man is very obviously unwell.
-Sad because I never want to be the kind of person who is out of touch with my humanity.
-Angry because this man is allowed to make decisions about my life despite this blatant display of mental incompetence. -Angry at this man for everything he has done while “sound of mind.” Angry that I have lost rights to my body and any chance of financial security, in part, because of this man.
-Angry that I am currently finding it difficult to see the human in him and struggling with the dissonance.
-Darkly humored because our government has been a shit show and I am burnt out.
-Darkly humored because how many young lives have been lost because of his actions? How funny to know that he will decay just like them- these people he had no empathy for, the people he saw as lesser. There is an irony in how mortal these men are despite their power and ability to drastically control the lives/deaths of others.

I wish I didn’t have this dissonance. I don’t want to lose my empathy- but I know it stems from the empathy of feeling powerless under the prehistoric hands of men like Mitch.
I pray there is comfort for the people who love this man. I pray he does not suffer as he traverses whatever health issue this is. But I also pray that he is stripped of the power he has abused. I pray that he realizes his own mortality, that he cannot brush it off as he has done with the mortality of so many people.
If he were more humane maybe I wouldnt struggle to be humane in this moment.