Election “Day” started last week.
Still waiting for a conservative to defend McConnell’s actions if he allows a vote this year on a SCOTUS pick.
Octopus?
Sam_Stone?
Tim_R.Mortiss?
urbanredneck2?
I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. Come on, folks – defend Mitch!
The argument is that it was totally different because Republicans held the Senate in 2016 and Democrats to not in 2020. It’s obviously not a good faith argument, but it just boils down to “We did it because we could, and you can’t, so you won’t.”
So, I don’t want to hear one damn argument that Democrats shouldn’t rebalance the courts. They can do it if they can. That’s the precedent now.
I don’t see how that’s necessarily not a good faith argument. Imagine a Senator says the following: in my view, if the White House and the Senate are held by the same party and are generally in broad agreement, then we can of course hold hearings with good odds of consenting to any given Supreme Court nominee; after all, we see eye to eye on what’s in the best interests of the country. But if our parties differ, and we disagree profoundly? Why, then, I’d of course like to withhold my consent from anyone I have reason to believe sees eye to eye with the president!
But, folks point out, that would be unworkable. Okay, he replies, with a sigh; I’ll limit myself to only being that uncompromising a partisan if a vacancy occurs in an election year; the rest of the time, I’ll grudgingly be somewhat deferential to the president’s nominees.
Is it possible to take that position in good faith?
No.
OT: @codinghorror, please fix your algorithm so it doesn’t presume to tell me what is a sufficient character length for MY post.
Of course not.
For starters, that’s not the argument they made in 2016. As Lindsay Graham made painfully clear, the precedent that they were pretending to be following said nothing about who controlled the senate and everything about an election year.
Now, we all knew this was not a good faith argument, and the fact that they immediately reneged on this bad faith precedent confirms those suspicions.
I have more respect for Trump, who at least didn’t pretend that this is more than it is. He said they are doing it because they can. That’s the most honest thing he’s ever said.
And, if that’s the precedent, I don’t want to hear any complaints when Democrats rebalance the court next year if they can do it.
Bless the memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
As a Canadian and knowing (and enjoying) the American obsession with mass media, I can’t help but wish that a major studio had had the foresight to produce a 2020 blockbuster action hero-saving-the-world-from-evil massive movie (something like “Inherit the Wind” (1960, Spencer Tracy et al., about the Scopes Monkey Trial) to galvanize the majority of decent Americans into action. It would ideally star your most popular, magnetic actors and have a script written by your most astute writers.
I know my neighbour is the type of person who is good at heart because I have lived beside her for over 65 years. She just needs the juice, the motivation to counteract the malevolence/bullying of the malignant dictator wannabe who is thisclose to grabbing full control of everything she thought she had free will over. It is frightening and urgent. My two cents.
So the problem with democracy is democracy? Sounds awfully elitist.
I assume you haven’t traveled much?
You came in here with your pompous and condescending American experiment bullshit and were told to shove it. Now, your focusing on getting me to define swath for you so that no matter what I say you can dismiss it and go back to believing your bullshit and pretending you have a point. The GOP regularly suppresses voting by people of color and this president has ramped up that effort to a startlingly degree, but you need to save face and get out of these deep waters that you’ve strayed in to.
No. People like you are a big part of the problem. Your Pollyanna act is patently false. Provide some evidence that voter suppression is not a serious problem in America.
You missed the part about how people you support the suppression of people of color voting?
First off, it’s clear you have no idea what “pompous” or “condescending” mean, because I have been neither of those things. I gave my opinion about Ginsburg’s death and its repercussions, pure and simple. Then you made a statement that I was interested in discussing, but only if I knew exactly what you meant. Now, you engage in my favorite Doper tactic of pretending to see into the future about how another one will react. Fine, you don’t want to discuss what I asked about. You could have just said that from the beginning.
I will give you credit for one thing, though. Even as I typed “American experiment”, I thought, that’s sort of a hokey and antiquated phrase, maybe I’ll change it. But then I though, wtf, it gets my meaning across, so I’ll just leave it. I’m not sure why it offends you so much though. Surely you are aware of the extent to which it described out country at its inception.
Yeah nothing at all that’s pompous and condescending in your writing style at all. It offends me because it is the voice of privilege coming down to tell the people who are paying attention that what they actually see is not in fact reality.
You’re doing it again. I haven’t told anyone here what they see isn’t real, least of all you. I have given my (adorable!) opinion. And at the risk of getting ignored again, what exactly do you mean by “privilege” and how it applies directly to me?
Yes you have. You asserted that Trump voters regret their choice when his approval rating has held steady. It is wishful thinking political analysis based based on American exceptionalism fantasies and it is dangerous.
I think telling someone they do not know what condescending means is a good example of condescension.
These 4 years have taught me that what has really made the system of checks and balances work in this nation all these years is honorable men who put the nation’s best interests above all else. I believe that is no longer the case, and I believe our democracy is truly threatened because that is no longer the case.
Are you talking about this?
I suppose not, since I clearly indicated this was an opinion. So, what were you referring to?
To be completely honest, there’s no argument against it: they have the power to appoint justices, and they can, and likely will, do so. The Constitution is pretty clear about this.
My biggest complaint isn’t what they’re about to do now in 2020; it’s what McConnell didn’t do back in 2016. One could argue that the Constitution doesn’t require them to give advice and consent, and that is technically true. But they refused to take up a hearing on almost strictly partisan lines.
One could argue that the voters gave Republicans a senate majority and that the Constitution vests them with that power, and that power includes the power to decide nothing at all. Technically true, but not healthy for democracy once you start exercising power simply because you technically can. The Republicans now have no basis whatsoever to complain about expanding and packing the Court if the Democrats decide that is what they intend to do.
Being as objective as I can be, my read on public sentiment is that a majority of Americans don’t want the Court politicized. They wouldn’t necessarily be on board with Democrats packing the Court because as I’ve said previously, Americans have long believed that the Court is mostly above politics. They’re not so naive as to believe that it isn’t influenced by politics and that there’s no ideology on the bench. The Court has had headstrong people like Scalia, Berger, Warren, Marshall, and others in recent years, and it had the disastrous Roger Taney in the 19th Century. But they generally believe that the Court is the institution that’s least tethered to ideology and McConnell’s decisions to filibuster out of spite and not hold hearings on Garland, coupled with eliminating the filibuster to ram justices that aren’t even ABA endorsed, is a dangerous form of hyper-politicization. It’s forcing the Democrats to be hyper-partisan in return.
And this goes back to a point I’ve made elsewhere, which is that the Republicans are basically going out of their way to be completely uncooperative in every way imaginable. Democracy requires some good faith, some cooperation. What the Republicans are doing is going so far out of their way to be uncooperative that they are forcing Democrats to be the same. They’re destroying faith in the entire system in this way. People will look at Democrats’ attempts to balance the scales as attempts to get even; cynical people will then say “See, both sides do it,” which is what Republican authoritarians want the typical dolt to believe. Republicans don’t want democracy; they want people to look at the federal government and say "Pfff, bunch of useless clowns. The feds can’t do nothin’ to improve my life nohow.’ That’s precisely what Republicans want you and us to believe. Not that they can govern better, but that nobody can govern effectively, so what difference does it make?
madmonk28 made no effort to show where I was specifically condescending. Until he does, I stand by my original comment. Opinions of others may be irksome, but that does not make them condescending.
To madmonk28, calling someone’s opinion, that you don’t agree with, “adorable” is condescending.