Quote (Goomshill @ 1 Feb 2017 14:38)
No, they didn't, and I already posted some pretty darn tootin strong evidence when you denied it.
Anyone who was not living under a rock for the past year can already tell you that the national story of Merrick Garland simply vanished without a peep, but if you're going to deny it, metrics like google trends provide a good picture for contrast of what happens to a story when it is expounded cycle after cycle in the news by politicians contriving a crisis, versus what happens when politicians go mum:
https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=merrick%20garland,fiscal%20cliffIt would easily have forced the republicans, because the democrats would be acting in the right, and republicans willing to let the government shut down to hold up an appointment that Obama is due would be negatively perceived
You realize that senate republicans never let the appointment come to a vote, or even filibustered it, but simply made no precedings at all?
Law experts pointed out, at the time, that Obama had the power to simply appoint Garland as if it were a recess appointment since the senate had chosen to waive its powers to advise and consent.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-can-appoint-merrick-garland-to-the-supreme-court-if-the-senate-does-nothing/2016/04/08/4a696700-fcf1-11e5-886f-a037dba38301_story.htmlThey had multiple recourses:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/18/judge-dashes-merrick-garlands-final-faint-hope-for-a-supreme-court-seat/Anyone with standing (ie a sitting senator) could sue to compel the senate to move along. That case was dismissed for no standing, but nobody with standing chose to file similar suit, even though they could
No they weren't. What pressure? I didn't see any screws being put to the republicans. Both sides dropped the issue quietly and moved along.
There were legal maneuvers they could perform to bring pressure and there were government functions they could hold hostage. Nothing of the sort was done.
Its like you don't even remember the fiscal cliff.
Google trends provides an accurate polling of how popular a story is in national media. Being able to quote some anecdotal evidence of say an article written by a joe bumblefuck somewhere about garland that was read by his own family and nobody else would be meaningless. Google happens to have the readily available resource to look up when people bothered caring about Syria, or when lady gaga was in the spotlight, or if anyone even remembers who Chris Dorner was. As it happens, even chocolate rambo had a longer shelf life than garland
just the simple fact that the ratio changes from 31-100 to 38-100 when you change the search region to "USA", and not like you did "worldwide" shows you how much more important an issue the fiscal cliff was, how much more direct impact it had, so choosing this as an example to prove how dems didn't make the media report enough on it shows how dishonest you are in your choice and methods. if anything, being at over 30% in popularity, despite having no direct impact on the global economy actually shows how BIG of a deal it really is...
also, since you keep ignoring my question about whether it was justified in your opinion to outright block a reasonable candidate like garland for a record breaking amount of time, shows me that all you're doing here is trying to justify your false equivalence, you aren't even interested in approaching the truth or being fair. the wrongdoing on this issue was clearly initiated by republicans, their disregard for traditions whenever it suits them and for the scotus itself, in order to steal a seat, is just disgraceful and undemocratic.
your argument about negative perception also falls short. you act like their refusal wouldn't already warrant negative perception and that holding the budget hostage to the detriment of all americans would somehow break some magic threshold that would have forced republicans to buckle. if these elections have taught us anything then it is that republican voters especially couldn't give less of a shit about facts, truths, or democratic rules and traditions...
i will gladly admit that dems could and should have put up even more of a fight, the public SHOULD be more outraged about this as it's despicable, but your argument that dems were just fine with how this went, did not object, and therefore are equally to blame, is outright false. no amount of calling reports about it anecdotal evidence can change that, except all this evidence was pure fabrication. public google interest in it is just a red herring
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