McConnell’s motives aren’t actually indiscernible. One can deduce them by observing the Democrats’ growing chatter about court-packing: To frankly admit that the Supreme Court is a partisan, policy-making entity — and that its decisions are now of such profound ideological consequence that polarized parties can’t be expected to let norms constrain their attempts to gain judicial supremacy — would be to imperil the entire conservative judicial project. The greatest trick conservative judicial activism ever pulled was convincing the world it doesn’t exist. The American right’s agenda is unpopular. A majority of voters may support the Hyde Amendment, but they do not support the overturning of Roe v. Wade or the establishment of fetal personhood. Americans may be skeptical of “big government” as an abstract concept. But they like the Clean Air Act, and believe that Uncle Sam has a responsibility to ensure universal healthcare. And the conservative agenda is poised to grow more anti-majoritarian in the coming years, as the unprecedentedly left-wing millennial and zoomer generations reach their prime voting years. In this context, the existence of a counter-majoritarian policy-making entity — that is broadly perceived as being above politics and which can advance conservative goals by declaring them constitutionally necessary (as opposed to having to persuade the public of their substantive merit) — is immensely valuable to the GOP. And this is all the more true now that Trump has packed the judiciary with Federalist Society 40-somethings. With a mere five conservative Supreme Court justices, Republicans have managed to ban limitations on corporate political spending, gut the Voting Rights Act, pare back Medicaid expansion, restrict the capacity of consumers and workers to sue corporations that abuse them, and stamp out school-desegregation efforts, among other things. Almost all these measures would have been too unpopular to enact through the (semi-) democratic branches of the U.S. government. And yet, the Roberts Court has not only assembled a record of conservative policy-making more far-reaching than Donald Trump’s — it has also managed to do so while retaining the approval of 56 percent of Democrats in Gallup’s most recent poll. The fiction of an apolitical judiciary —whose judges harbor disparate constitutional philosophies but not loyalties to competing ideological projects — enables conservatives to enact much of their political agenda with little public awareness, let alone pushback. Each year, a select few Supreme Court cases become major news, while the vast majority pass by unnoticed by the median voter. This is an ideal setup for an anti-majoritarian ideological movement. And conservatives safeguard that setup by dutifully framing their judicial ambitions in ideologically neutral terms. So, McConnell did not justify blocking Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court nominee by noting Garland’s pro-labor jurisprudence would impede conservative economic goals. Rather, he appealed to popular sovereignty: Let the people decide who gets to pick the next justice. Similarly, in an editorial calling for Republicans to replace Ginsburg before Election Day, the National Review does not argue that fortifying a conservative Supreme Court majority is vital for advancing the right’s ideological aims, but rather, for advancing “constitutionalism on the Court” (as though there were one objective approach to applying the ambiguous language of an 18th-century document to 21st-century legal disputes, and that this entirely non-ideological approach just so happens to dictate conservative policy outcomes in virtually all cases). If the McConnell rule is dead, then court-packing is permitted.
A good comment I hope the Democratic leadership stops Weimar-ing this. Republicans don't care about rule of law, the constitution, the people, civility or even traditions. This is a cold civil war, and has been for 20+ years. Any R willingness to act in bipartisan civility passed decades ago. They are attacking the American people. There's an actual death toll to go with it. Fight back. Set policy discussions aside and fight to restore democracy. This isn't politics any more.
Man you are too moronic for words. Who got picked up? Wtf are you talking about? They were spying on his campaign. Anyone two hops from Carter Page has a microscope up his or her ass. They didn’t find anything of substance. Because Trump is clean and you and Bob Mueller and Jim Comey and Brennan all know it. That’s why they had to go deep in the well to keep the coup going after the election. Forget it - you are purposely being stupid which is your everyday face.
Just show me EVIDENCE, ANY EVIDENCE of ANYTHING being picked up. That's all, how the fuck is this confusing. You keep making claims with absolutely no evidence that Page was in communication with the campaign and there was ANYTHING to 'pick up' Yea, the guy who hides his tax returns by saying it will do irrevocable harm and goes to the Supreme Court to hide it is 'clean'. You are the rube Trump University aimed for.
Actually, the dems have been attempting to pack the court since the 30s. Pinkerton: The Democrats’ Long History of Trying to Pack the Supreme Court https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...-history-of-trying-to-pack-the-supreme-court/ Democrats Talk Tough Rep. Joe Kennedy III, Democrat of Massachusetts, got right to the point when he tweeted on September 19, “If he holds a vote in 2020, we pack the court in 2021. It’s that simple.” Kennedy was saying that if Donald Trump nominates a candidate for the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg this year, then next year the Democrats will expand the court and pack it with liberals and progressives—if, of course, they get back in charge. “Packing the court” is a loaded phrase, reaching back to a failed Democratic effort to expand the court in the 1930s. Indeed, that experience nine decades ago was so disastrous for the Democrats that, if they knew their own history, they would be fleeing from the phrase “court-packing,” not embracing it.
That's a nice way of saying they didn't do it. But ya, keep crying though, packing is coming, conservative judicial project is over.
Today, one of the more significant institutional voices against expanding the court is … Joe Biden. In July 2019, Biden said “we’ll live to rue that day” if the court was expanded. In a debate, he said it would lead to round after round of expansion and the court would “lose all credibility.” Senator Bernie Sanders, no stranger to radical ideas, has also said he doesn’t want to pack the court. So has the more moderate Michael Bennet.