Also known as “being a sucker” when your opponents play for keeps. If the rule should be changed, then change the rule when it’s possible. When it’s not, push the rule to its limit, because the other side won’t play with honour.
Yes, I’m starting to see the foolhardiness of my prediction/wishful thinking. I’m now pretty convinced it will happen and happen hard. The main question is will it all be said and done by election day, or spill over into lame duck season.
I hope the former. Reason is, I think there are a significant number of people who don’t like Trump, but voted for him because of that grand bargain you mention. So far they have gotten everything they hoped for. With RBG replaced, well, that’s like a wet dream for an old geezer. Do you think now (or post confirmation) those people will say, more or less “Thanks Chump Trump. As a useful idiot you’ve done me well. Now, F off a-hole while I take a shower on 11/3.”?
I noticed!! Do I win anything?
I also noticed that Obama wasn’t running for reelection and couldn’t be held accountable…Trump is and will be.
Nobody wants to be the sucker, which is why everybody throws a sucker punch, which is why nobody wants to be the sucker. This is why politics sucks.
The truth is that very few people want to see the country go down in flames. You have to have a little faith in your fellow citizens, or at least try to understand why do what they do. That doesn’t mean you have to let down your guard, but it does mean you have to search for common ground.
In the case of originalist or strict constitutionalists, that means you want to capitalize on generations of “substantive due process” jurisprudence before it’s too late. And that means it’s time to push for Constitutional amendments while you still have broad public support.
~Max
Interesting background on the right-left-right shift of court from the Atlantic for even the old folks here who are too young to remember.
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ends an incredible legal career, one that advanced gender equality and inspired millions. RBG, as she became popularly known, was, like Thurgood Marshall before her, one of the handful of justices who, through their work as lawyers fighting for justice, can truly be said to have earned their spot on the judicial throne. But the outpouring of grief that has followed her death is not just for the passing of a revered figure in American law but also for the end of an important force in American society: the liberal faith in the Supreme Court.
This faith is more recent than many people recognize. A century ago, the biggest critics of the federal judiciary were on the left, and for good reason. For most of its history, the Supreme Court was the most conservative of the three branches of government, consistently blocking, or at least delaying, efforts at social, political, and economic reform. From Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson , in which the Court upheld the subordination of racial minorities, to Lochner , which denied the government the ability to regulate much of economic life, the Court epitomized what William F. Buckley would later identify as the conservative credo: the impulse to “stand athwart history, yelling Stop.” By the Progressive Era and the Great Depression, it was widely held that the Supreme Court could only hinder, not help, the cause of reform.
But then, for a few decades, everything changed. The fundamental reason was politics: Over his 12-year presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed a record eight new justices, nearly an entire Supreme Court’s worth, two of whom—the liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas—served into the 1970s. The context changed as well: The federal government’s massive expansion during the New Deal and World War II transformed both elite and popular understandings of the Constitution. This change was so profound that Dwight Eisenhower, the first Republican president elected after FDR, appointed the two justices, Earl Warren and William Brennan, who would later lead the Court to its liberal zenith. These were the decades of Brown v. Board of Education , of the removal of religion from public schools, of the expansion of free speech and the rights of criminal defendants. In these decades the Court was a true partner in the political branches’ attempt to move the country forward.
Richard Nixon began the Supreme Court’s shift back to the right, appointing conservatives like Warren Burger, Lewis Powell, and William Rehnquist. Liberals still won a few important victories—most notably 1973’s Roe v. Wade —but since 1969 Republican presidents have appointed 14 justices. Democrats have appointed only four. The past half century of American constitutional law is defined, more than anything else, by this simple fact.
…
I have to call out that Buckley quote–it’s too good! (And too true!)
…the Court epitomized what William F. Buckley would later identify as the conservative credo: the impulse to “stand athwart history, yelling Stop.”
Romney will vote for whoever Trump picks before the election so that pretty much seals it. Guess the Dems should get ready to pack the court.
I saw Romney interviewed tonight, and he said he wanted the process to proceed to a vote, and he would vote based on the nominee’s qualifications.
He didn’t say he’d vote Yes. 
Oh my sweet summer child. . .
I know. But wouldn’t that be hilarious?
You think he’d pull a McCain?
McCain explains his dramatic vote against the GOP’s last-ditch Obamacare repeal idea - Vox .
Over the next two days, McCain voted yes on the motion to proceed on Tuesday [ . . . .] — but then voted against the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act
Fun to imagine, yes. I doubt it’s going to happen, though.
The question is only superficially discussed, as far as I’ve seen: What would cause the Supreme Court to lose – really lose – its cloak of legitimacy? And would would be the result if that happens?
The SC has no real enforcement power. (Cite: Andrew Jackson.) If the Repubs really put a far-right conservative in now, the Court may really lose a lot of its legitimacy. If the Dems pack it, then even worse.
Then when the Court starts making grossly partisan decisions, people won’t respect that.
Here’s one concrete example, tangentially mentioned somewhere nearby: Suppose Trump is re-elected (with some help from his “friends”) and later declares he will run for a third term. Then suppose the partisan SC gives the go-ahead for him to do that. What will happen?
My prediction: That most of the state Secretaries of State will simply refuse to put Trump on the ballot in their respective states. Trump could fight it all the wants in the courts, but he simply won’t appear on the ballots.
Then what? Even more Civil War?
Yeah I’ve been wondering this too. I think what McConnell has done so far - blocking Garland but then 180-ing himself to get Barrett (or Lagoa) on is skirting riiiiiight on the border edge of still maintaining the Court’s legitimacy. If Democrats decide to pack in six or eight additional justices after Biden wins, I think you will begin to see genuine state-level or local-level acts of revolt against the Court. And if Republicans follow up by packing twenty or thirty new justices when they recapture power in 2028, the Court is officially a joke in the public’s eyes.
Depends on the state. If McC stuffs, e.g., the likes of Barrett or Lagoa on the Court, then Democratic/liberal leaning states may consider it a step too far, and begin to rebel. But Red states will love it. Then if Biden were to pack Liberal sardines in, the Dem/lib states would love it but the Red states will rebel.
Our nation will taste of blood in the streets.
Whatever slim hopes there were of four GOP senators stopping this seem to be over. If the Republicans do manage to create a 6-3 majority, it will not in any way reflect public opinion and will be viewed by Democrats as an existential threat to their agenda. They will be tempted to pack the courts but that is also a hugely risky step which could completely destroy the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. It’s quite likely that GOP governments will simply stop obeying the rulings of an expanded court leading to a constitutional crisis.
Cite for your “cite”?
~Max
History has to be our guide here, it is going to be a bit unfortunate that as I expect a few very, very bad notorious decisions that will come from such a conservative court.
So bad that most of the people will be against anyone that calls themselves a Republican, it is only then that talk about expanding the court should take place, it can not be done early since the judges will only understand how bad it is until the metaphorical torches and pitchforks are at their doorsteps.
As history shows, just talk about expanding the court will be enough to eventually get more progressive decisions, but more importantly, we will get more progressive laws from a congress that will become more blue as a result of those bad verdicts if the conservatives of the court want to play their conservative activism game.
Yeah, I think a hard right reactionary court will lose legitimacy, especially if it attacks the likes of Roe and the ACA. One of the leading candidates for the opening has argued in the past that both the state of West Virginia and Social Security lack constitutional legitimacy.
Good progressive legislation can win the voters to the Dems’ side in a battle between them and a court determined to do what Donald and Mitch are hoping it will do. Ignoring the Supreme Court rulings if they fly in the face of public opinion is something Dems may be uncomfortable doing but they’ll be able to pull it off if they have the testicular fortitude to do so.
First things first: make elections better and lower Medicare to age 60. And promise to lower it another five years after SSA has caught up administratively.
He’s probably referring to this:
If an arch-conservative Supreme Court veers too far away from mainstream thought, the constitutional remedy would be legislative and constitutional amendments. If ACA is at risk because it depends on whether or not it’s a tax: pass a less ambiguous law. If Roe is on thin ice: enshrine a woman’s right to choose in the constitution via amendment. (Not easy…but it would be a court-proof remedy.)
Apocrypha. He probably didn’t say that, ever.
~Max