Talking About Political Reputations: Why do you think Mitch McConnell is so offended by the nickname Moscow Mitch instead of just laughing it off?

On the questions-and-answers site Quora, member Richard Lindhe asks:

Why do you think Mitch McConnell is so offended by the nickname Moscow Mitch instead of just laughing it off?

My reply:

I do not - thank goodness - know Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) personally, but I can make an educated guess as to why he is so ticked off at being called “Moscow Mitch.”

McConnell started out as a moderate Republican when he started his political career. His early political positions as a Kentucky politician were pragmatical and middle-of-the-road. He wasn’t an opponent of abortion rights, and he used to support public employee unions. But since his first election to the U.S. Senate in 1985, McConnell has become the poster boy for partisan obstructionism and a desire to grab as much power for the right-wing of the Republican Party as he can.

One of the GOP’s tropes is that conservatives are allegedly more patriotic than the Democratic Party or liberals in general. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, and even Quora) is festooned with memes, comments, and statements that reflect this particular bit of Republican dogma, and McConnell’s Senate web page is a case study in “More Patriotic Than Thou” shills.

Since in-your-face patriotism is one of the tenets of modern Republicanism, appearances matter to McConnell.

So if McConnell is called out by his political opponents as deliberately turning a blind eye to an unfriendly nation’s interference with our elections and hindering efforts to prevent it, well, he’s not going to like it very much.

So it goes without saying that if you accuse Mitch McConnel of letting Russia meddle with our elections because it is an intervention that helps the GOP, he is not going like that, either.

One thing I’ve learned in my many years of life is that people, in general, do not like having their wrongful activities being called out. This is true of John and Jane Doe, private citizens; it’s even more prevalent in the world of politicians.

And considering that Senator “I’m More Patriotic Than the Democrats” McConnell would like the public to see him as a “true American,” it must rankle him when he is called “Moscow Mitch.”

#MoscowMitch