He still has to hold his entire party together. He’s obviously got the votes now, making the filibuster a pointless exercise. But should you choose to save the filibuster for later, it could easily be the case that the Republicans will be more fractured next time. If you believe that the Trump administration is going to be a disaster, it’s entirly possible that you will be able to find a few moderate Republicans lwho are willing to abstain from a cloture vote to distance themselves from a lame duck and an ultra-conservative pick - especially if it’s a liberal seat up for grabs.
Or you can consider this logic:
The chance of a filibuster succeeding now is approximately zero. Political capital gained filibustering this pick - zero or negative. Then you lose the future ability to filibuster at all, meaning Trump doesn’t have to worry at all about accommodating Democrats should Ginsberg or Kennedy retire.
On the other hand, the chance of a future filibuster working is unknown. But unknown beats zero. And the mere existence of the threat of a filibuster may cause Trump to nominate a more moderate justice in the first place to avoid the political blowback of a contentious fight.
I think this is a mistake in tactics. It’s too soon to peak and by the time 2018 rolls around interest will have subsided a bit. I think it’s more valuable for Democrats to go along with this reasonable nominee so later they can get Republican party defectors to sustain the filibuster later, even sustain a majority against a more disagreeable nominee. Of course, I’m not a Democrat so take that with huge grain of salt.
Actually, I haven’t. I just haven’t paid that much attention, sorry.
That’s because the Dems didn’t hold up Bork’s nomination.
And yes, it was thirty fucking years ago. Y’know, it’s silly to ask the Dems to just forget what happened last year, and refuse to abandon this grudge.
You are invited to start a Pit thread with evidence that I “fluidly adopt or discard principles in service to that goal.” I welcome your comments there.
538 had an analysis that a filibuster might motivate the hard core, but probably won’t motivate more moderate voters. The hard core are probably voting Democratic anyway.
I would prefer the filibuster were retained, but only as a “talking” filibuster – thus requiring actual endurance and toughness to make it happen. This way, human endurance would mean that it could only be used occasionally.
But the way it is (or was yesterday)? I’m glad it’s gone. It’s dumb, IMO, that 60 votes should be required for pretty much everything the Senate does.
I think the chance of a future successful filibuster is pretty much known now too – it’s near zero. If the Republican party is fractured to the point that it could be successful, then the Democrats wouldn’t have anything to really worry about anyway… the party is already almost ungovernable, and that would just tip it over well past any chance of organization and governance.
With this in mind, I put a much higher value on motivating Democratic voter than this minuscule (and probably unnecessary) chance of an actual successful filibuster in the future.
I think there’s a much better chance of motivating more “moderate” Democratic voters (as well as hardcore Bernie supporters, among others) than of an actual successful future filibuster.
I think it’s cute that so e of you think that the Democratic base needs further motivation, and that motivating them in this way won’t cause you to lose more moderates that have been fleeing the party in droves.
Lots of Democrats didn’t vote, or voted third-party, in 2016. Certainly enough to swing the election the other way had they voted for Hillary Clinton.
If anything’s “cute”, it’s the idea that there are Republican Senators who wouldn’t jump at the chance to replace RBG or another “liberal” justice with a “conservative”, even if it required getting rid of the filibuster.
I have to agree with DSY that very few people care about the procedural stuff, though that leads me to the differing conclusion that there is no meaningful political capital to be gained.
I think it would score some points with people like Fred Hiatt (WaPo editorial page editor). The Dems have a bad history of paying too much attention to what people like him think. The Republicans have a history of not giving a damn about the opinions of such people. (I think the GOP has the more politically effective approach, fwiw, and I’m certainly not arguing that they should pay attention to Hiatt & Co. Just stating what I believe to be fact.)
This is why I think it advantages the Dems for them to force the GOP to get rid of the SCOTUS filibuster if they want to put Gorsuch on the Court: they won’t do it themselves, and the day is coming when they will need it gone. While the GOP will get rid of it whenever it serves their purposes.
If you were REALLY sorry, you’d make up for it by going back and reading all of his posts for the last 18 years. That way you’d see just how consistent he’s been!
Another reason to filibuster – it increases the likelihood of the Republicans getting rid of the filibuster, and for the legislative filibuster as well, and this will help the Democratic party in the long run.
Next time the Democrats are in power, if there isn’t a filibuster, then universal health care is much easier, so is increasing the minimum wage, and many other priorities. And repealing those things when the Republicans inevitably take back power would be incredibly difficult (as we’ve seen with the ACA).
It’s more the other way around: the Dems need to avoid DEmotivating the base.
Well, who’s paying attention to the procedural stuff? We keep on coming back to the point that most people aren’t. And if you aren’t paying attention to it, what the Dems do or don’t do about it won’t bother you.
But the folks who are newly aroused in their opposition to Trump and the GOP - they ARE paying attention. The Dems could lose them by not fighting. So in terms of their support, filibustering has little if any cost, while failing to filibuster has potentially huge costs.
Interesting, but I do believe in changing views in light of “new information”, and I think the idea that a majority party would block an up-or-down vote indefinitely (Garland), without electoral penalty, is “new information” that changes the long-term calculus.
This is an example where Garland has changed the calculus: Campaign: “If we take the Senate in 2018, we can block Trump from replacing RBG indefinitely; by holding fast now, we can prove to our donors/base that we have the will to do so.”
It looks like Christina Wilkie and Politico may be pushing fake news, or peddling plain ol’ fashioned horseshit. Maybe they should have ACTUALLY verified the story BEFORE they published their version of reality. Or not.
This, essentially. If the Dems are pinning their hopes on an outraged backlash against the GOP for how they are handling Supreme Court nominations, I would have expected them to suffer more losses in 2016. Instead, turnout dropped off and Hillary lost.
Besides, if they filibuster someone as calm and moderate-appearing as Gorsuch, the Dems are the ones looking like the partisans determined to get their way at all costs.
I rather doubt if the mainstream of American politics reacts the same way to these things as the SDMB does.
