Thread by @asymmetricinfo

@marksma3 I'm going to say one more thing, respectfully: I think that you have a germ of a point, but it might not actually prove what you think it does.

@marksma3 Which is this: In this game, Republicans have been somewhat more willing to nakedly exercise power; Democrats have been somewhat more reliant on dragging nominees through the mud.

@marksma3 That is what you'd expect if one side has a much friendlier media than the other.

@marksma3 The problem is that when you say to Republicans "See, we didn't just refuse to hold a vote! Instead, we did our best not just to prevent that person from being nominated, but to completely besmirch their name so that the other side would have to withdraw them" ...

@marksma3 They don't think, "Oh, well, that's fair." *They think that's worse*. Particularly since, as the GOP has nominated people who are harder and harder to target in this way, the accusations have gotten both weirder, and more arguable.

@marksma3 Going after people for being Knights of Columbus or members of a Catholic spiritual community is viscerally outraging in a way that a lot of Democrats seem not to understand.

@marksma3 And the essential unprovability of the Kavanaugh nomination, and the way that some media organizations weakened their reporting standards, was monumentally divisive. I saw #NeverTrump friends completely radicalized by it.

@marksma3 Precisely because the logic seemed to them to be "Oh, we'll only take down nominees for cause--but luckily, we get to decide what causes count, and what the evidentiary standards are; you don't get a vote."

Conservatives don't see that as fair, or better than Garland.