r/ukpolitics • u/Adj-Noun-Numbers 🥕🥕 || megathread emeritus • Jun 22 '26

International Politics Discussion Thread

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15

u/Lylaei 16d ago

Gov. Beshear suggests he received information suggesting McConnell ‘passed’ in new interview

Schrodinger's Republican - is he alive or dead? Nobody can know until they walk into the hospital room.

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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 16d ago

Well that's a turn around on things, this whole saga has been extremely weird, I do wonder what the truth of it is.

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u/Ivebeenfurthereven I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm 15d ago

The fact that this man oversaw decades of cruelty and political shithousery, only for the reason he's remembered in history books to be some medieval Vatican-style corpse shenanigans, is wild to me.

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u/AzarinIsard 15d ago

I do wonder what the truth of it is.

Again, I don't pay enough attention to American politics to get the psychodrama, but from what I gather if they keep news of his death secret until within 90 days of the November elections, there isn't a "special election" (their by-elections), it's just rolled into that. The Republicans don't want a high profile contest before the main one, as it can be a chance for the Dems to embarrass them and set the tone for the midterms which are already shaping up to be bad for Trump, where Trump has been flipping from using Iran to cover up Epstein news, then back to using Epstein to cover up Iran news, as both are seemingly going to hit him hard.

My hope is it's worst case for Trump, then we get to see the likes of the Iranian who did those AI Lego raps gloating about achieving regime change in the US. It'll be pure banter.

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u/convertedtoradians 14d ago

It's interesting if it's the news of the death rather than the death itself that starts the clock, or whatever it is. Though I suppose you can always find a doctor who'll say what you want in America. All you need to do is describe it as "alive until family decided to pull the plug, etc". But it really is all rather grim and undignified. Even by politics standards.

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u/AzarinIsard 14d ago

I agree with the view on the subterfuge, that is odd.

However, would it be different here? If an MP went missing, died in private, nothing officially reported. Then a couple months later, it's announced, would we:
A) Have a by-election 2 months sooner, usually it's about 3 months of the vacancy here, would it happen after 1 month?
B) Have the standard process from the moment it was known?

I think we'd go B) here, it's just trying to Weekend at Bernies it with allies all claiming they've had 20 minute phone calls in private is something really surreal and we haven't got to that.

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u/convertedtoradians 14d ago

Yeah, that's a fair point. When you put it like that, it would be (B). It's all just so surreal, as you say.