Thad Cochran’s Legacy

Thad Cochran’s Legacy

Senator Thad Cochran has health problems. This is hardly a surprise; any 79-year old will have health problems, whether they be physical or mental, or both. In Cochran’s case, it seems to be both. He has shown signs of mental impairment on the floor of the U. S. Senate¹ and recently had to take medical leave.

Cochran, who is now the longest-serving member of Congress, with 44 years in Congress, 39 of them as a senator, has been quietly sitting at his Senate desk, usually watching, occasionally assisting, in the transformation of the United States from something approximating a republic to an oligarchy. He invariably voted in lockstep with the Republican Party (like the recent abominable tax bill that no one had even read prior to the vote) and has been rewarded richly over the years for his loyalty.

On the positive side, there is no doubt that he has faithfully taken care of his constituents when they had problems with the federal government.

Like most of his Senate collegues, Cochran is not a man of vision². Mississippians obviously like him, but when I take an informal poll, none of his supporters are able to tell me specifically what he has done, other than sponsoring some legislation to help farmers. It seems that voting for Cochran has become a habit, not a careful choice.

I cannot think of a single instance in which Cochran has stood on principle against the dictates of his party or the prejudices of his voters. His votes in the Senate have always been cast in favor of the rich and powerful and against the poor and vulnerable. In Mississippi, that’s the easy path to staying in office.

Cochran was “very proud” of the fact that as senior senator he inherited the seat of Confederate president Jefferson Davis³.

Unfortunately, he reflects the attitude of those Mississippians who have always voted for him. Mississippi has remained near the bottom of the nation in almost every measurement of quality of life, including income, education, health, and crime. Our state has retained its position at the bottom of the ladder because we cannot imagine a different world than the one we now inhabit, except perhaps a world in which the clock has been turned back. We vote for candidates devoid of vision of what we can do if we only put our minds to it. I can’t think of any significant attempt Cochran has made in 44 years to raise Mississippi from its place at the bottom. Our state desperately needs leaders of vision that can say with George Bernard Shaw “You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’” But we vote down candidates who say “Why not?”

What else can one say? Cochran has been a place-holder, a chair occupier, a man with the ability to make a significant contribution to his nation and state but didn’t. His political principles, as shown in his legislative record, follow the prevailing legislative winds. He is a polite, courtly man who has accomplished little for nation or state. He is now showing signs of senility, and it is time for him to step down.

He should have been gone long ago.

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1. See 79-year-old GOP senator “disoriented” and voting wrong after medical leave in Vice News, Oct 19, 2017 ↩

2. Vision is an idea of what things will look like if one persists in an undertaking or project. I am not aware of any ideas from Cochran as to what we (or he) should be doing now to create a desirable future. Perhaps he does have a vision that he knows people will reject, because what he has done in Congress has been devoted to bringing about a neoliberal world. It is not a pretty future unless you are in the top 0.1%. ↩

3. Cochran’s pandering to the racial prejudices of white Mississippians is sickening. A slave owner himself, Jefferson Davis presided over a bloody civil war prosecuted for the sole purpose of preserving the ownership of black slaves by white masters. He wholeheartedly defended an evil institution that would have never existed if it wasn’t highly profitable. The cause of the South was never about honor, not even remotely. It was land and slave labor. ↩