Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel and combat pilot Amy McGrath has announced that she is running against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and I am ALL IN WITH AMY.
Video Description:This. Is. Everything.
Text onscreen reads: "The Letter." Piano music.
Over video of a white teenage girl with short brown hair sitting at a dining room table handwriting a letter, Amy McGrath says in voiceover: "I was thirteen years old, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I sat at this table, and I wrote a letter to my senator, telling him I wanted to fly fighter jets in combat, to fight for my country, and that women should be able to do that."
McGrath, a 44-year-old white woman with short brown hair, appears onscreen, speaking to camera: "He never wrote back. I'm Amy McGrath, and I've often wondered how many other people did Mitch McConnell never take the time to write back — or even think about."
A middle-aged white couple sit at a table; the man is handwriting a letter. He is identified by text onscreen as Pat Roberts of Boyd County, Kentucky. In voiceover, McGrath says: "A second-generation steelworker, who found out his mill is shutting down, leaving no jobs behind."
A Black woman sits at a table handwriting a letter. She is identified by text onscreen as Ann Young of Bourbon County, Kentucky. In voiceover, McGrath says: "A woman, suffering from diabetes, who fears losing her healthcare and coverage for her preexisting condition."
An older white man sits at a table, handwriting a letter. He is identified by text onscreen as Jimmy Guess of Johnson County, Kentucky. In voiceover, McGrath says: "A coal miner, forced to retire by black lung disease, who's looking for someone to offer more than words."
A young white woman sits in a chair on her front porch, composing a letter on her laptop. She is identified by text onscreen as Kendall Russell of Jefferson County, Kentucky. In voiceover, McGrath says: "A student, who can only afford college as long as she can get her federal loans — and has no idea how she'll pay off the debt."
McGrath again appears onscreen, speaking to camera: "Everything that's wrong in Washington had to start someplace. How did it come to this? That even within our own families, we can't talk to each other about the leaders of our country anymore without anger and blame?"
Over images of Mitch McConnell, McGrath says in voiceover: "Well, it started with this man, who was elected a lifetime ago — and who has, bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise, where dysfunction and chaos are political weapons, where budgets and healthcare and the Supreme Court are held hostage, a place where ideals go to die."
McGrath again appears onscreen, speaking to camera: "I'm running for Senate, because it shouldn't be like this. I learned as a daughter, a mom, a Marine, and a fighter pilot that the mission can never be forgotten, that protecting our democracy requires courage, that our freedoms are never assured, and the best way to lift someone up is a job. The challenge of today is inside each of us: How do we reconcile our belief in basic human decency with our anger at those who block progress at all costs?"
McGrath sits at the table with her husband and children, one of whom is writing a letter. In voiceover, she says: "There is a path to resetting our country's moral compass, where each of us is heard, and we can become, once again, the moral and economic leader of a world in disarray." We see each of the other letter-writers once more. "But to do that," McGrath says, once again speaking to camera, "we have to win this."
Text onscreen: "Amy McGrath | KY 20 | U.S. Senate. Defeat Mitch. Defend Democracy. Please contribute at AmyMcGrath.com."
I love everything about this: That she correctly identifies the role McConnell has played in destroying the U.S. democracy and undermining functional government. That she says, plainly, he has turned D.C. into "a place where ideals go to die." That she asks: "How do we reconcile our belief in basic human decency with our anger at those who block progress at all costs?" That she is, right out of the gate, taking up space in solidarity with her fellow Kentuckians and would-be constituents. That she has the goddamn courage to take on McConnell in the first place.
I have already donated to McGrath's campaign, and I will do anything and everything I can to support her challenge to McConnell.
Tell everyone you know to get her back. Follow her on Twitter. If you can, donate. Make her name heard. Let's help Amy McGrath defeat Mitch McConnell.
