Dems must fight to win, then make GOP pay on the court
Democrats must fight to win and when they do, they better have the guts to make conservatives forever regret their hypocrisy.
It’s not so crazy to seriously consider adding Supreme Court justices — something that hasn’t been done since the mid-1860s but isn’t entirely impossible to do either.
The change requires only legislation, so technically, the Democrats could do it if they take control of Congress and the White House next year.
Court packing isn’t a wildly popular idea, which means Democrats must be like Republicans: Promise, say and do whatever necessary to win on Nov. 3 and take total control.
And once in power, stop at nothing to get your way, such as expanding the court. It’s been the Republican way, so Americans should be OK with Democrats doing exactly the same.
“You reap what you sow,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Democrats in a tweet this week, defiantly challenging those calling out his hypocrisy over appointing a Supreme Court justice so close to a presidential election.
Right back at you, Republicans. You’ll reap what you sow.
GOP senators don’t care being called hypocrites. What matters to them is to pack the Supreme Court with conservative judges who could potentially kill the Affordable Care Act, overturn Roe vs. Wade and shape the judicial system for generations.
Just look at GOP Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Graham of South Carolina, who blocked judge Merrick Garland in 2016 by arguing that a lame-duck president Obama shouldn’t make such consequential appointment to the high court.
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,” Graham said in 2016.
Four years later, all these senators aren’t only unfazed over the intense
criticism they face but are thumbing their nose at it.
“There’s nothing more grotesque than the GOP working to ram through a Supreme Court pick before they get substantive coronavirus relief to their constituents,’’ U.C. Berkeley professor and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich tweeted Tuesday. “They care only about power. Never about people.”
If Democrats can’t stop the GOP senators, it seems all but certain that whoever Trump appoints to replace the liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be confirmed, cementing a conservative court.
What’s left to do then? Fight like hell like your life depends on it, because it does. That means register to vote, cast a ballot and encourage others to do so.
And following the GOP logic, Joe Biden and Democratic contenders in key battleground states like Arizona must do and say whatever voters want to hear to win since flipping — if necessary —
defiantly
isn’t a big deal.
Biden, who’s ahead of Trump in national polls, is already on record against packing the court, saying “we’ll live to rue that day” if the court was expanded, according to Politico.
That seems to help him, so by all means keep drumming up that message.
Same with Mark Kelly. The Democrat who’s challenging GOP Sen. Martha McSally reportedly came out against packing the court, though he isn’t really publicizing his stance.
McSally, who’s trailing Kelly in the polls, is against adding justices to the court because conservative justices would be the majority.
Adding justices to the court is fairly easy, though politically problematic.
Scott Bomboy explained in the Constitution Daily how the number of Supreme Court justices has changed over time from the initial six in 1789 to five to seven to 10 and back to nine with the Judicial Act of 1869.
The fight over the number of justices and who gets to serve has always being about political power and shaping the social fabric of the nation.
There is a good reason why nobody has been able to arbitrarily add justices to the high court in more than 150 years. Precedent, stability and decorum is important.
But Republicans have tossed all that out. They’ve proven they really don’t care about precedent, stability or honesty anymore. They only care to impose their conservative views on everyone at all costs.
Republicans like Lindsey Graham aren’t afraid to tell Democrats this is payback time. Why shouldn’t Democrats do the same after November?