If you postulate “no elections”, with the Republicans in charge, then they really win.
If that doesn’t happen, then they still win.
Seems you just set up a scenario where, in the long run, heads they win, tails they win.
Depends on whether the presidential election was compromised as well. If so, then the GOP has stolen two seats so far, not one.
Every scenario I’ve read about court packing by a future administration seems to involve only 2-6 new justices being packed in. Why not just go big with 100 new justices or something? Because the other side will just follow up 2-6 more seats with something bigger than just 2-6.
It seems to me that eventually we have to come to grips with the fact that our politics have become too partisan for the current method of filling the court to work. I think we need an amendment to address it:
- All new justices get 18 year terms, not lifetime appointments. That way, eventually all presidents will be guaranteed 2 appointments.
- Unless the Senate votes to reject a nominee within 3 months of it being made, nominees will be automatically confirmed. That way we won’t get another Garland.
This won’t address all of the partisan issues but it does mitigate them somewhat. Or we could simply wait for the Republican Party to disband, in which case all national problems cease to exist.
The key to the court-packing plan is to have your new shill justices rule that further changes to the Supreme Court’s size are unconstitutional. 
Do you consider either of those two options to be “realistic”?
For the record, I would be completely OK with #1, but I’m not so sure about #2. Make it 6 months, and I would consider it.
You err in conflating historically normal Republican nominees with Current Crook in Chief nominees.
I think it’s hard to know what is realistic. Right now we have a party that refuses to govern responsibly, either in majority or in opposition. I fear that they will continue in this mode until they are destroyed and a responsible opposition to Democrats emerges.
If a 6 month period will get me your vote, I shall make that change.
So uh… no one want to discuss the 538 Senate model? That’s cool.
And Sparta was sidelined and never regained the influence and power it previously had.
The way their bell curve is drawn, the most likely result is 50-50. Next most likely is 51R-49D, third most likely is 51D-49R. The way the map looked earlier, this is as good as I can hope for. Either the Dems take control or just fall short and are a shoo-in for control after the 2020 election. TN and AZ in play! Hell yes!
I think 1/3 is a bit optimistic, though I would love to see the Ds take it over. Historically, the House had more power as a body while individual senators had more power individually. Now, the Senate has both more power as a body AND more power individually, so it’s the more valuable pick up.
While it’s fantastic to see that worm Ted Cruz squirm, I just don’t think we’re quite to an upset there. And I’m worried that there isn’t enough polling in places like Indiana to really know how Donnelly will do. Manchin might do okay, but Donnelly and McCaskill? I’m just not sure. Obviously a wave helps, though waves don’t even need to pick off red seats in red areas in the House in order to flip it, so the House and Senate are really operating under completely different conditions.
Plus Phillip did invade Laconia and stripped it of valuable land and gave it to his other Greek allies. He Didn’t bother with Sparta itself as it wasn’t worth much. Sparta rebelled once against the Macedonians, got crushed and was never relevant again.
If you’ve ever asked “Is there any limit to what Republicans will do in order to win?”, Texas will answer your question.
I think I used to ask that. Now I’m sadder and wiser.
Agreed that it is a bit generous to the D side … but. “Macro path.”
Trump won, among other reasons, because “change” voters, ones who could vote either way or stay home, chose him not HRC. They were willing to roll the dice as to what that change would be.
Them coming out to vote to continue what change they are seeing? I’m seeing more “change” energy aimed at changing from the now, not from Obama years.
Macro level is turnout. Change voters vote against Trump and GOP dominance this time or they stay home. That moves election results. It might even be enough to squeak Beto in!
So maybe possible after all.
Much discussion reminds me of the apocryphal frog who didn’t jump out of the hot water because it had warmed so gradually. That frog may be fictional. The warning he offers us is not.
“Well, that’s OK,” I’m sure many Germans thought, “they can still work as money-lenders or whatever it is they do.”
Trump and the GOP are already denying passports to U.S. citizens who appear to be Hispanic. Scientists who believe in global warming are no longer welcome to work for government. Party alignment is becoming a criterion even for civil service jobs. Highly respected journalists are being ridiculed by the Administration. Tax policies are changing to adversely affect opponents of Trumpism. The Congress of 2019 will make rules for the Census that will have profound effect over the coming decade.
If this isn’t the existential crisis of American democracy, what are you waiting for? The sound of broken glass in the night?
If it becomes somewhat obvious that a Dem-controlled Senate won’t consider any typical Trump nominee for SCOTUS, is there anything that requires Trump to nominate someone?
The guy clearly hates losing. (Well, no one likes losing, but he seems to take his hatred of it to extremes.). It strikes me as being in character for him to tweet that he will soon nominate someone who is “the best ever – you won’t believe how great he is” and then never actually nominate someone.
Of course, his other viable option would be to nominate someone the Dems would happily approve, but I can’t see that happening.
The only scenario with a good outcome is one where the voters reject the GOP so decisively that it either ceases to exist or radically reforms itself. A democracy can’t survive in the long term if it elects people of Trump’s caliber half the time.
This tactic really only makes sense IMO if you think it’s realistic that the “other side” might never win another election, or at least not until everyone has calmed down a bit. It’s only to be considered in times of serious crisis.
Historical precedents: In 1801, the lame duck Federalist Congress attempted to limit the power of incoming President Thomas Jefferson by declaring that the next SCOTUS justice to die or retire wouldn’t be replaced. They also created a whole bunch of new Federal judgeships which outgoing President Adams hastened to fill before his term ended. In 1802, the Democratic-Republicans undid all that mischief, and the Federalists never controlled the government again and ceased to exist within a few election cycles.
In 1866, the Radical Republican Congress likewise reduced the size of the Court to prevent Democratic President Andrew Johnson from appointing any Justices, then restored the previous status quo as soon as President Grant was elected in 1868. The Democrats didn’t control the White House and Senate again until 1892, by which time the passions of the Civil War and Reconstruction had cooled.
And of course the idea was floated by President Roosevelt in 1937 but proved wildly unpopular; however, SCOTUS did respond to the threat by becoming somewhat less obstructionist about New Deal policies, so it wasn’t a total loss.