Hypocrisy

Mitch McConnell’s speech after Trump was acquitted was one of the most glaring examples of hypocrisy ever, but we should not be surprised. Hypocrisy is no longer enough to lose an election. It doesn’t matter any more.
Part of that is that the charge gets leveled at everybody, and for almost everybody in congress (Bernie Sanders and maybe 4 or 5 other people are exceptions) it’s true. So, when we point out that McConnell is a hypocrite for voting to acquit someone who, in his own words, is completely guilty of cheering on the riot in which 5 people died, of attempting to murder Mike Pence, of creating an atmosphere of violence, of attempting to interfere with democracy, it doesn’t really hurt McConnell with the voters he needs to win. No more than it hurts him that he hilariously mispronounced hyperbole as hyberpole.
I doubt 50% of them could define it coherently, and probably fewer than 1 in 4 could spell it. And, because both sides accuse the other of it (and both sides are right) they just sort of figure it means ‘bad’ and therefore they’re going to shout it at the other team.
It’s not entirely a new thing. There have been hypocrites in congress since 1775, and hypocrites in the halls of power as long as there have been halls of power. The ability to get a lot of people to follow you has always depended, to some extent, on your ability to lie, and some people can do it more convincingly than others.
The amazing thing is that now we have the internet, and both audio and visual recording techniques, we have clear proof of hypocrisy, on many politicians, at many points throughout their careers. The blame for the fact that this does not disqualify them for office falls squarely on the voters.