January 17, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hunting Down Mitch McConnell Is the Meme I Need Today

The New York congresswoman is coming for you.

Andrew Harnik/AP

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As the longest government shutdown in US history drags on into its fourth week, many have started to wonder on social media #wheresmitch, a largely rhetorical question intended to highlight the curious silence of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his continued refusal to hold a vote to reopen the government, despite the House passing several measures to do so.

McConnell’s sudden elusiveness even stalled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other freshman Democrats, who stormed through the Capitol on Wednesday in hopes of confronting the Republican leader, or at the very least uncovering his whereabouts.

“He seems to be running away from us,” Ocasio-Cortez said at one point.

“He’s not in the cloakroom, he’s not in the Capitol, he’s not in the Russell Building, he’s not on the floor of the Senate, and 800,000 people don’t have their paychecks.” Ocasio-Cortez then asked defiantly, “So where’s Mitch?”

That dogged chase has sparked a slew of excellent memes, which—in light of the sheer, infuriating pettiness that is our current president—can be enjoyed below.

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THE BIG PICTURE

You expect the big picture, and it's our job at Mother Jones to give it to you. And right now, so many of the troubles we face are the making not of a virus, but of the quest for profit, political or economic (and not just from the man in the White House who could have offered leadership and comfort but instead gave us bleach).

In "News Is Just Like Waste Management," we unpack what the coronavirus crisis has meant for journalism, including Mother Jones’, and how we can rise to the challenge. If you're able to, this is a critical moment to support our nonprofit journalism with a donation: We've scoured our budget and made the cuts we can without impairing our mission, and we hope to raise $400,000 from our community of online readers to help keep our big reporting projects going because this extraordinary pandemic-plus-election year is no time to pull back.

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