Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Filling the SCOTUS Seat Isn’t an Option, It’s an Obligation
With Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and a newly vacant Supreme Court seat, the political madness of 2020 got even madder. But this moment is precisely why so many Republicans voted for Donald Trump despite their misgivings. A conservative majority on SCOTUS has been a signature goal of the party base going back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Now, 40 years later, the opportunity is finally here.
To quote Margaret Thatcher, this is no time to go wobbly. As expected, many are.
The center-right’s appetite for catering to the Democrat base instead of their own is insatiable. In reaction, GOP voters launched the Tea Party movement. When that fizzled, they elected Trump. Many Republicans still haven’t learned this lesson and want to surrender before any battle begins.
At The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last oddly casts this moment as a “political crisis,” which it most certainly is not. Justice Ginsburg’s passing is a sad event, as is anyone’s death, but it was as inevitable as every other Supreme Court vacancy. We’ve been through this more than 100 times before.
Yet Last believes RBG’s mortality is an unexpected “black swan” event. His solution is to toss aside the simple Constitutional process and replace it with a complex backroom deal:
There are only a handful of ways out of this trap and all of them require the prudential coordination of elites. Which is … not something we have seen a great deal of in the last, say, generation of American life.
Nearly zero voters, left or right, want to be governed by the “prudential coordination of elites.” In fact, the Constitution doesn’t mention “prudential,” “coordination,” or “elites.” It does state that the President is obligated to nominate a jurist and the Senate to provide advice and consent.
Why invent some novel aristocratic contraption when our foundational document provides a simple path forward? These are the rules every elected official — left, right, and center — agreed to uphold since our founding.
One expects knocking knees at The Bulwark, but the demand for some extraconstitutional haggling is spreading.
Jonah Goldberg and David French, two conservatives for whom I have great respect, recommend a different type of deal with Senate Democrats. I’ll let French explain:
First, Trump makes his pick.
Second, the Senate applies the Schumer principle and gives the nominee a hearing. This will have the benefit of giving the American people a more-complete picture of the qualifications and philosophy of the nominee and thus the stakes of the presidential election.
Third, the Senate then applies the Graham/Rubio/Cruz rule and does not vote before the election. If Trump wins, they then vote on the nominee.
But what if Trump loses? What principle comes into play? Joe Biden’s own words provide the guide.
In the October 2019 Democratic debate, Joe Biden clearly expressed his opposition to court-packing. “I’m not prepared to go on and try to pack the court,” he said, “because we’ll live to rue that day.” He continued, “We add three justices. Next time around, we lose control, they add three justices. We begin to lose any credibility the court has at all.”
Goldberg, offering similar advice, adds some context in his LA Times column:
Even before Justice Ginsburg’s demise, Democratic support was building not just for packing the Supreme Court by increasing the number of justices (which Ginsburg opposed), but also for D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood and abolition of the legislative filibuster. Now Democrats are all but vowing to go through with expanding the court in response to a rushed replacement for Ginsburg.
What will be the GOP’s argument against such schemes?
…Moreover, merely on the level of realpolitik, abandoning all considerations other than what you can get away with amounts to preemptive disarmament for the wars to come. The pernicious logic of apocalyptic politics works on the assumption that the long term doesn’t matter. But the long term always becomes now eventually.
Making a too-clever-by-half deal instead of simply following the Constitution is also a type of “preemptive disarmament for the wars to come.” The GOP has the White House and the Senate, while the Democrats have nothing. If the Packers are leading 42-3, they don’t give two touchdowns to the Vikings if they promise to be nice to them in the next game.
Any deal is especially suspect given the Senate Democrats’ abysmal track record on upholding the slightest of norms. A party willing to portray the dullest nominee in SCOTUS history as a high-school drug lord and gang-rapist has no interest in comity or fair play.
French and Goldberg’s deal is better than Last’s but still attempts to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Trump and McConnell hold all the cards; the left has only screaming.
Democrats high and low have already promised to pack the court, create new states, and abolish the electoral college. They have allowed their constituents to create mayhem, attack citizens, destroy businesses, and burn buildings in their cities for three and a half months. This is who they were before RBG died and they will only radicalize further as we move toward the election.
The Republican base has set everything in place for a conservative Supreme Court. It is the party’s obligation to deliver it to them.
Forget “prudential coordination of elites,” it’s time at last for “We the People.”
Published in Law, Politics
Every other member doesn’t have to post their disputes of Gary. And that would clutter things up a lot. But someone needs to, lest the lies go unchallenged.
In a way it reminds me of when I lived in Phoenix, any time I heard or saw a car crash, I always called 911. Because if everyone assumes that someone else will call, then NOBODY calls.
In one particular incident, I learned from paramedics on the scene that a little girl had been seriously injured, and there had only been one call. Mine. I thanked them, and they thanked me.
No; I make no assumptions. I also do not know that they don’t believe the lie, and there are many lies floating around about Trump, some endorsed by Gary.
Fair enough (and thanks for the thoughtful response). I just have the impression that Gary takes up way too much of everyone’s bandwidth.
~mutters~
The only bandwidth totally wasted by Gary, is Gary’s. :-)
Also a fair point.
Fortunately, we have some members who are very good at deconstructing Gary’s regurgitations, and they don’t seem to mind doing it.
That’s why I hate get out the vote PR campaigns.
If you’re not motivated to vote on your own, you’re probably not very informed and I’d rather your vote wasn’t counted.
We should be making it harder to vote, not easier.
Don’t forget to slam the door when you get there.
Interesting, but do you think any “Nevers” will bother to read even the summary? Link to the document, so those who hate TGP don’t have to go there.
https://www.scribd.com/document/477171053/Hunter-Biden-Burisma-and-Corruption-The-Impact-on-U-S-Government-Policy-and-Related-Concerns#from_embed
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/breaking-senate-finance-homeland-committees-release-report-hunter-biden-burisma-corruption-devastating/
I noticed that too, in other places, and it’s one of the reasons I only just listened to podcasts for a long time, before even starting to read posts and comments, let alone begin commenting myself. The Ricochet membership – rank-and-file, if you will – seems to be much more Trump-supportive than the Ricochet “Establishment.”
I’m totally with that. I would favor a voting “literacy test” but then you run into, who makes up the test?
It appears that I have stirred up a hornet’s nest, even after I acknowledged that “Apex Predator” Cocaine Mitch has the votes to proceed.
Let me say this. I post and comment only as to things that I know or believe to be true.
I don’t post or comment to start fights.
I think that it is unfortunate that I apparently live “rent-free” in some people’s heads.
I am well aware that many of my fellow Ricochetti disagree with me. I do not consider them to be my “enemy” but just as people who disagree with me about a certain point.
I am looking forward to the election being over in 41 days. I wish everyone well, even my most caustic critics.
As to the underlying issue of this post, while I think that it will be a tactical mistake to proceed to a confirmation vote, if I were in the Senate, I would vote to confirm ACB or Barbara Lagoa.
Oh, goodie goodie!
But you’re voting for a President and Senators who wouldn’t nominate either of them.
No question about it.
Literacy tests are too easy to abuse.
I just want to discourage people who don’t care enough to jump a few simple hurdles.
Require people to re-register every so often. (If I had my way, we’d flush the entire voter registration list every ten years and start from scratch). If you can’t be bothered to go register*, you’re probably not that interested in voting. Motor voter is a travesty.
*I went to City Hall with my dad and registered on my 18th birthday.
Or you may have moved, or died…
Tradition used to be the ‘democracy of the dead’ but the Dems never much cared for tradition anyway so they co-opted the dead.
True. However there are multiple reasons to vote against Trump, which go far beyond the scope of this post or comments.
Yeah. You’re honest. Well-meaning. Just wrong on some things.
I could very well be wrong about some things. That is clearly within the realm of possibilities.
I heard he was picking a woman because they are much harder to accuse of gang rape.
Maybe they’ll accuse her of being Lizzie Borden.
Your ends are probably about right. But I think you’re wrong on the means. Demonstrably so.
And if the means aren’t going to lead to the (supposedly) desired ends, then being “right” about the ends is really irrelevant.
Hey,. this post is now on the second page and we have over 200 comments. I am going to step away.
Gary
And as Andrew Klavan joked yesterday, we can save money since we only have to pay her 75% as much as the men.
I wasn’t aware that either of those were reasons to stop commenting on a post.
They need to be called out at every turn, all the time. They deserve no peace for spouting lies. No peace for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Gary is voting for Biden. He rooted for the Democrats to take the House, and he is rooting for them to take the Senate. This is the outcome he has staked his vote, his money, and his sacred honor upon.
It won’t be over, Gary, in 41 days. If you get your wish, it will only have just begun.