Mitch McConnell Claims That Barack Obama’s Election Was A Form Of Reparations, And People Are Livid


Via Nick Storm on Twitter

The sitting president of the United States is hogging a lot of the media’s attention today, with him formally announcing his 2020 run during his 6,000th rally of the year, and that’s on top of once again claiming DNA evidence doesn’t exonerate the Central Park 5. But Mitch McConnell is doing what he can. The day after being called out (again) by Jon Stewart over his treatment of 9/11 first responders, the Senate majority leader revealed that he doesn’t support reparations for slavery.

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Why not? Partly because the nation twice elected an African American to the job currently held by a man who claimed for years that he was born in Kenya, and that seems to have fixed everything.

“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea,” McConnell said to reporters Tuesday. He claimed it would be difficult to know who to “compensate.” Besides, he thinks the government has done enough. “We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We’ve elected an African American president.”

McConnell is of course referring to Barack Obama. Shortly after his first election in 2008, McConnell publicly boasted that he wanted Obama to “fail.” He then spent the eight years of Obama’s presidency trying to block everything he wanted. Perhaps most infamous is the fact that he’s bragged about not allowing even a hearing for Merrick Garland, Obama’s choice to replace the late Anthony Scalia.


McConnell’s words come the day before a House Judiciary Hearing is set to hear testimony in favor of reparations from, among others, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor/activist Danny Glover, as per BuzzFeed News. Worth noting: Both the House and the Senate have formally apologized for slavery, as have several states. One exception: Kentucky, represented by — that’s right — Mitch McConnell.

His statement was not well-received by portions of social media, but then again, McConnell’s words rarely are.


A lot of people focused on his curious Obama argument.

https://twitter.com/hassankhan/status/1141070010644754432

https://twitter.com/alexkotch/status/1141064409986584580

Even people who almost agree with him don’t agree with him.