Doom
Well, as the saying goes, it’s all over.
Kennedy is retiring from the Supreme Court.
The Times, twisting the knife, includes McConnell Says Senate Will Move Swiftly on a Replacement in the headline.
We’d all emigrate, but no one would have us, and who can blame them.
Trump will be able to impose authoritarian rule with the Court’s blessing (possibly literal).
McConnell is the second most despicable person in DC.
Roberts will probably cockblock some of it but not enough…
Is there anything the Dems can do to block Trump’s nominee? Assuming they can muster the vertebral strength?
The vulnerable Senators won’t do it… So even some possible red defections (anyone who wants to throw a fuck you at Trump as McCain did last summer) the numbers aren’t there.
McConnell already abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, so 40 votes isn’t good enough any more.
If Trump nominates a standard-issue, Federalist-society approved judge from the federal court of appeals or a state supreme court, a la Gorsuch, then barring some disqualifying personal issue, he or she will cruise to confirmation with around 55 votes (picking up some red-state Dems).
Only way this nomination runs into trouble is if (1) there’s some personal issue that was missed in this judge’s prior confirmation hearings; or (2) Trump goes off the reservation and nominates Jeanne Pirro or Judge Judy or Roy Moore or somebody like that, which might give enough Republicans pause, as with Harriet Myers.
Is this how he’s going to reward Roy Moore?
I almost wish he’d pick Roy Moore, for instance. The disgrace would move a fraction of the Trump supporters and elected officials into some slight opposition. More to the point though, he’s not young or clearly healthy. For a lifetime appointment, Trump could be scariest picking out some right wing fanatic right out of law school with 60 years of fascist enthusiasm ahead of him.
My guess is that they’ll play up the possibility of a crazy nomination like Pirro: have them invited to the WH for an interview, leak that they’re on the short list, etc., so that the eventual Gorsch Mark II nomination seems like a relief.
I’m sure that Trump would love to make a crazy nomination just to prove he can, piss off the libs, etc…. but fundamentally he doesn’t care enough about the Court to waste the effort on a fight. And I think his deal with the Christian Right is that he delivers exactly the judges they want, and they look the other way on all his other shit, so Trump has basically outsourced judicial nominations.
I think that’s partially true. He doesn’t care because he’s only going to enforce those decisions he agrees with. But he does care in one way – he wants validation of the things he does, he wants other people to heap praises on him at every single moment of every single day, 24/7/365, so appointing someone to the court who will gain him praises from his people will be a goal, and possibly also appointing the judge who proves to be the biggest toadying lickspittle that will willingly rule that Trump is entitled to do whatever he wants because he is president, has a “nicer” apartment than anyone else, and gets two scoops of ice cream.