There are still over 4 months until the next Senate convenes and the next presidential term begins. That's plenty of time to confirm a nominee.


Either way, we shouldnt be naive and argue about norms. Neither party gives a damn about norms, it's all about having the power to pull shit off.

Yes, four months would be a pretty typical time to confirm someone, but it's far less than 11 months. Holding a nomination for 4 months is pretty normal especially in an election year. Holding a nomination for 11 months is ridiculous under any circumstances.

I'm really glad that this incident has finally made conservatives in general drop their pretending to care about norms. I just wish they had been honest the last 11 or so years because that's when they actually stopped caring

You're leaving out an important factor: Obama didnt have any mandate left in 2016, the electorate had specifically taken it away in the 2014 midterms when they gave control of the Senate to the GOP (on top of taking away the House from Obama in 2010). By contrast, the verdict from the 2018 midterms was more ambiguous for Trump, voters took away the House majority from his party, but expanded the GOP majority in the Senate.

Obama was a lame duck with no legislative majorities whatsoever, while Trump is still in the running for reelection and backed by a Senate majority.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 20 2020 04:13pm

Nah, you're just trying to justify GOP obstruction. They made a bad faith obstruction and had no intention to even look at his nomination. End of story.

We can say the GOP could confirm a candidate now legally but not while making any appeal to mandates, norms, or anything soft like that.

The Democrats didn't have the Senate. They didnt have the votes.

The Republicans have 51 Senate seats.

L2math

Of course the stonewalling of Garland was obstruction. But one can argue that the electorate had given the GOP a mandate to do exactly that when they took away the Senate from Obama in 2014.
Trump has more of a mandate to nominate the successor of RBG than Obama had for Scalia in 2016, it's really as simple as that.

On a side note: how inconvenient that a lot voices among Democratic ranks had already been musing about going nuclear before RBG died. Had they only now started to threaten going nuclear as soon as they get control of the Senate, this threat might have carried some weight and might have caused some Republicans to weigh between a SCOTUS pick and Dems going nuclear. But since the Dems have already made it clear that they're intending to go nuclear anyway, they have very little leverage and there is next to zero reason for GOP senators to get cold feet.

The GOP controlled the Senate. Ergo, they had the authority to reject unpalatable candidates.

The Democrats do not control the Senate. Ergo, they have no authority to reject unpalatable candidates.

There is nothing wrong with using authority derived from the people to carry out their will in a constitutional manner. That's what's meant by "mandates".

Sure, they can do it legally, but you have to abandon any idea that there's norms to supreme court nominations or that their 2016 obstruction was in good faith.

The only reason to install a partisan stooge to the court at this time is to stage a coup. The activist right wing court will prevent mail-in ballots from being counted and will swing the election to Trump and install him. It will be like Bush in 2000 except millions disenfranchised instead of a few hundred. At that point we have a dictator.