It is an odd state of affairs when you’re not sure if one of the most prominent Republicans of the last half century—whose life has been shaped by being Disabled at multiple points—is alive or dead. The person in question? That would be former Republican Senate majority leader Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell who—as of press time—is at the center of maelstrom of questions about whether he is clinging to life.
McConnell is far from the first American politician to have his health questioned in the public eye—though he might be one of the first to have his resignation chances gambled on via sites like Polymarket. That history has a much longer tail, and includes a long line of presidents: Franklin D. Roosevelt hid the fact he was Disabled; John F. Kennedy Jr. was notoriously riddled with chronic ailments; James Madison had epilepsy. There’s a well-documented history of Abraham Lincoln having depression severe enough that his contemporaries thought he might kill himself at one point.
McConnell isn’t even the first elected official to have a disability seen as disqualifying. Ronald Reagan’s second term was overshadowed by public questions about his mental faculties and age, although many (including one of his biographers) dispute that mental decline impacted the Gipper.
Joe Biden’s stutter and frailty were seen as unforgivable in some circles, not to mention the current public discourse surrounding Donald Trump’s capacity to continue serving as president. It is a fairly recent development for politicians like Iowa state Rep. Josh Turek, Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, and Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley to make disability central to their messaging.
What gets a lot less attention about McConnell’s current predicament is that he was disabled at age two by polio. It’s a condition that affected many 20th century politicians, including the aforementioned Roosevelt and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. McConnell also isn’t the only sitting politician on Capitol Hill who had to survive their bout with polio to get there. The other is Tennessee U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who is set to retire at the end of his current term.
Before McConnell’s hospitalization, the national spotlight was on Republican New Jersey congressman Tom Kean Jr., who recently returned from a similar disappearing act amidst a depression diagnosis. He told his House colleagues June 30: “When I first informed the public that I was dealing with a medical issue, I was still trying to understand what was happening myself. When I said I hoped to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it. Those were the best estimates the doctors could provide. But, as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing. There is no timeline for recovery. Only the work of getting better one day at a time.”
Kean’s depression has, similarly, become hotly debated online, with everyone from the Guardian and Mother Jones to Fox News weighing in. Glance on over to social media and you’ll see pages like Occupy Democrats leaning into the disability angle.
The same day Kean made his speech, for example, they wrote on Facebook, “Congressman, you work for the public. Your privacy ended the moment you asked New Jersey voters to trust you with their representation…Today’s speech was moving. Kean’s words about recovery and asking for help were genuinely important. But the format he chose — a five-minute floor speech to a nearly empty chamber — conveniently allowed him to say exactly what he wanted and dodge every question journalists and colleagues still want answered.”
Now, part of this outrage is the hypocrisy of it all. McConnell and Kean have both repeatedly rallied in support of legislation that directly hurts Disabled Americans. Both voted for the so-called Big Beautiful Bill and now benefit from the very social graces the president and leader of their party sees as a weakness to be eradicated from public life. Their absence is noteworthy because their positions insulate them from the horrors their party has unleashed.
Still, it’s hard for some to see the current rhetoric as anything other than being rooted in vitriolic ableism. Similar to when body-positivity advocates call out critiques of Trump’s body instead of his violent policies, some disability advocates find it hard to take that Trump’s—and now McConnell’s and Kean’s—detractors have resorted to the same brand of attacks on their bodily capacity.
What most agree on is that the American public deserves to know whether these politicians are fulfilling their responsibilities. That’s as fair as conversations about mandatory retirement ages, Supreme Court expansion and term limits. Those are accountability questions. What has flooded our media market is questions about the very validity of Disabled people holding public office.
What advocates are saying is that the debates should be about policy and accountability, not about whether Kean was depressed enough, whether McConnell deserves to mocked for using a wheelchair or whether Trump uses incontinence products.
Disability is value-neutral. Violent oppression is not.
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