We can never know for sure but it is widely believed Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump had he been the democratic candidate. This is backed up by polls where Sanders consistently beat Trump in a hypothetical match-up (for whatever that is worth).
Once you stop pretending nothing unusual or untoward happened.
Suppose for a moment that Ruth Ginsburg had passed away during Bush’s last year in office. Do you think the political left would have been OK with Bush nominating a centrist in her place, or would they have insisted on “Replace a liberal with a liberal?”
Had Obama nominated someone like Gorsuch, I think the GOP actually would have Senate-confirmed him, yes.
Finally, suppose the Republican Senators made a “show” of allowing Garland to get a hearing, but simply voted him down (and always intended to) when the confirmation vote came. Would that really be that much different than what happened in real life?
It doesn’t matter. I dislike Biden, but had he run — and I sympathize with his reasons for not running, so a Biden-like character — there would have been little they could have done with his reputation. Certainly Obama would have won against Trump, as he himself admitted.
And if the Republican character-assassination squad is so great how come Obama won the previous 8 years ?
As someone else pointed out, if the Democrats go “thermonuclear” and pack SCOTUS with, say, a hundred extra justices, then the next time the GOP regains the presidency and a Senate majority, they can go “Inter-Galactic Death Star Beam” and pack it with ten thousand justices. Is that really the path we want to go down?
Certainly they would have made noises about that. I expect if Bush appointed a far right justice Dems would obstruct it. If Bush appointed someone pretty moderate (like Garland but slightly on the right of things) I expect it would have gotten through.
It’s weird how republicans never seem to worry about this when doing similar.
There’s no way court-packing would work, in my understanding, but the Democrats should have no illusions that the Republicans in Congress would hold back from any possible tactic that they think would increase their power and likelihood of being re-elected.
Paranoid much?
And kudos for the comedy gold in the sane liberal majority line.
Where is it specified in the Constitution? Cite, please.
And I said I think your objection is bullshit. Sounds like we’re clear here.
I watched an episode of Seinfeld once. Didn’t see the point.
There’s a difference between not getting over something, and merely insisting on calling a spade a spade. The 2000 election was stolen. I don’t think about that very often, but when it comes up, I’m not going to beat around the bush. Same with Garland/Gorsuch.
The 1960 election was stolen, and so was Bork’s seat. You give those back and I’ll make sure we fix up the 2000 election and the Garland seat.
Because it’s gotten better and more entrenched. 8 years ago, “news” on the conservative side wasn’t entirely fictitious. Today, it bears only the most passing resemblance to reality.
Nonsense. He couldn’t even beat Hillary, and that was without having to face the fiction-bots.
So Kennedy wasn’t appointed to the court, because the Democrats refused to consider ANY candidate? Huh. Must have missed that.
Seriously, comparing “rejecting and replacing a candidate” to “not allowing a seat to be filled at all” is stunningly intellectually dishonest.
But the failure to beat Clinton was with the DNC thumb on the scale.
No, the Kennedy/Nixon example was offered in counter to the 2000 Bush/Gore election. The Bork rejection was offered in response to the Garland one.
Failing to read the post to which I was responding and an inability to connect the analogy dots is just dim. But on the positive side, it’s not dishonest. So, stupid but honest.
Good grief. Here: Bush II’s presidency was stolen and if we’d gotten Gore then the entire supreme court would be packed with kale-chewing hippies by now. Are we done?
And obviously, what the democrats need to do is nominate fifty new judges, and then make a law saying no additional judges can be appointed and that any replacement judge must be ideologically similar to the prior one. And then they should make another law saying the prior law was actually a superamendment requiring a 100% majority to change, and of course their army of judges should declare that both of the new laws are constitutional.
I see no problems with this plan and subscribe to my own newsletter.
Who’s talking about giving back anything? I’ll call a spade a spade with respect to 2000 and Garland, and if you feel the same about Bork or 1960, you can do the same.
But if you want, we can exhume the corpse of Richard Milhous Nixon and place him in the Oval Office in place of the Orange Abomination. (Not sure how else we could ‘give back’ the 1960 election at this late date.) I won’t even ask for any give-backs in return. 
Say what you will about Nixon, but he was a more capable chief exec alive than Trump is, and dead, he’d still be ahead on points.
But fine: I will simply call it: the 1960 election was stolen, as was Bork’s seat. Done.