Mitch McConnell's Hands

Submission 9,064

About

Mitch McConnell's Hands refers to a viral photograph of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell's bruised and bandaged hands.

Origin

On October 20th, 2020, the Associated Press^[1] published a photograph of Mitch McConnell's hands. In the picture, McConnell's hands appear bruised, discolored and with bandages on his thumbs (shown below).

Spread

On October 21st, 2020, Nation editor Annie Shields tweeted ^[2] the image with the caption, "Uhhhhh look at this picture of Mitch McConnell's hands that @lizzyratner found on AP." The post received more than 3,500 likes and 1,800 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). Fellow Nation editor Lizzy Ratner responded^[3] to the tweet with another picture and the caption, "Apparently, it is hard work murdering democracy" (shown below, center).

That morning, the MeidasTouch Twitter^[4] account shared the image with the caption, "This photo of Mitch McConnell's hands from yesterday." The tweet received more than 13,000 likes and 8,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, right).

That day, Redditor 22switch posted the image on the /r/mrdizzy,^[8] where it received more than 5,900 points (96% upvoted) and 570 comments in less than 24 hours.

Twitter^[5] user @AEscaninha attempted to explain the phenomenon. They wrote, "Those skin lesions appear to be related to some vascular issue/disease. He's probably on blood thinners. That skin is very common in patients who are on dialysis" (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the image, including The Daily Dot, ^[6] The Mary Sue^[7] and more.