Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Marsh
But I don't think the republican-controlled senate is breaking their own precedent - didn't the democratic-controlled senate do the exact same thing to George HW Bush in 1992?
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... No? What SCOTUS nominee did they reject in 1992? All that happened was Joe Biden made a speech in which he said that, as a general rule, no one should be nominated the summer before an election so that the nominee didn't become a political football. It wasn't said in the context of an actual vacancy on the Court. There was no actual action taken.
I agree that it's clearly within their legal right to do, in fact, it's actually their obligation. But having ignored that obligation four years ago based on a rationale that is
even more applicable today given the relative proximity to the election, the response, "sure, you can do this, but given what you did last time, you absolutely shouldn't" is completely fair.
The Republicans are, and I think it's perfectly fair to say this without partisanship, brazen cheaters. They'll do whatever they can do to rig the game to get the outcomes they want. They'll push things as far as they possibly can. The Democrats are sometimes also cheaters, but usually, they're simply not willing to go nearly as far as the Republicans, and in other cases they just aren't as competent at cheating. If, as a result, they continue to get the rug pulled out from under them, those realities will no doubt change.
If it gets to a point where the side that holds power is just the side that's better at breaking the rules and circumventing the system, then the rules and the system become meaningless, and you might as well just be shooting at each other. I was exaggerating to make a point when I said someone should simply assassinate Mitch McConnell because the rules don't matter, but it's really not that far from the path things are heading down right now.