Thread by @neoavatara

I am still sad about everything. RBG should have been honored as one of the greats; her friendship with Scalia is one of the great relationships in modern US History.

Instead, everyone devolved into hypocrisy, hysteria, anger, and stupidity.

So, let me get this off my chest:

First and foremost, the cycle of idiocy around the Court shows how we have allowed SCOTUS to become FAR TOO IMPORTANT.

This is what happens when you spend decades making SCOTUS into a 'legislative' body instead of a rare, final arbiter of constitutionality.

I have a lot of beliefs that I agree with the Court on (guns) and disagree (abortion) but again...why the hell should we let 9 unelected individuals make these decisions?

We are becoming a failed state, with poor legislative leaders failing us time and again.

People's hate for Justices (Scalia, RBG) is so dumb. I never got to meet Scalia, but I did meet RBG once years ago. I would have loved to have a 1 hour conversation with her on all sorts of legal issues.

But she is on the other team, so she is my enemy, or something.

Also, the fact that both sides rely so entirely on single individuals (Scalia, RBG) to protect their INDIVIDUAL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS?

Says a lot of things about country, and none of them good.

As for the politics...I have no idea who this helps in the election. None. Zero.

And frankly I don't care.

I want the people to win to be the people that will help fix this mess.

Unfortunately, those people may not exist.

As for confirming a justice during election year...

Historically this would have largely been easy. POTUS has the right, Senate does its job, done and done. But our politics is such garbage, we can't even do that.

Good piece from @baseballcrank

nationalreview.com/2020/08/histor…

But one thing Dan doesn't explain is this:

HISTORICAL PRECEDENT AND NORMS ARE DEAD AND HAVE BEEN FOR A WHILE.

I don't know exactly when this happened, but it definitely predates Trump. Was it Obama, Bush, Clinton? I have no idea. Trump just accelerated the process.

I think this really predates my birth.

I know that my first inkling of this is as Joe Biden scorched Clarence Thomas in the Senate hearings, without an ounce of sympathy or any hard evidence. Something changed for the worse then.

And 'Borked' is now a verb in our lexicon...

That doesn't put the blame solely on Dems. There are plenty of examples from the other side.

But this cycle of idiocy gets worse and worse. Bork. Thomas.

Then the absolutely horrific behavior of Democrats with Bush nominees...like Miguel Estrada.

washingtonexaminer.com/because-he-is-…

I think liberals can make argument against Republicans better than I can, and I will let them do so.

My failure here to list those isn't because I think they don't exist; 100% know the GOP has been garbage. But I think they'll do a better job prosecuting that case than I could.

But the hypocrisy has grown and grown. Democrats are deluding themselves in believing that this is all Mitch McConnell's fault (although he is PLENTY to blame).

For example: The filibuster of Alito by Obama and Reid...who then a few years later...killed the judicial filibuster.

Obama's failure on judges is really quite remarkable.

He failed, in 2009-2010 (when he had the largest Senate majority in a generation) to fill court seats with liberals. He was focused elsewhere. His incompetence helped Trump have tons of seats.

Furthermore, Dems keep saying the GOP blocked Obama judges, and that is why they nuked the filibuster.

That really isn't the case. Judges by President:

Clinton 387
Bush 340
Obama 334
Trump 190

uscourts.gov/sites/default/…

Dems increased resistance to judges under Bush, then GOP with Obama...and then they blew out the gates by ending the filibuster. At the time, I said this would be a slippery slope that would lead to SCOTUS fights...liberals said I was crazy.

How did that work out for ya?

So now we have Trump. And it would be one thing if Dems said "Oh, as long as Trump nominates people through the normal process we established, its fine."

Um, nope. Trump gets a lot of hate from the Left on this, but it is the FAULT OF OBAMA AND REID for giving him these tools.

You can argue from here to the end of time that this was the GOP's fault, but when given the opportunity to nuke the judicial filibuster in 2005, GOP thought better of it.

Not so much for Reid and Obama.

But then came the GOP's biggest failure: Merrick Garland.

They should have given Garland an up and down vote. Don't need hearings, etc to do that. The entire process was garbage.

Obama had the right to nominate. Garland was a reasonable candidate. He should've gotten a vote.

I understand McConnell's nuance on why he was allowed to do what he did. Legally he's right.

But morally? Morally I think he was wrong. I think every candidate deserves an up and down vote. I thought that with Miguel Estrada, and Dems blocked that. And then this.

But the Estrada nomination shows exactly how broken things are.

Democrats blocked him for only a couple reasons:

1. He was conservative.
2. He was HISPANIC.

When was the last time the GOP blocked a judge...BECAUSE OF HIS RACE????

For all the talk about 'Trump undermining the election results', Dems have spent the last 4 years talking about how the election was illegitimate. Then, they have candidates largely making entire careers out of this (Stacey Abrams?).

If you don't think POTUS is legitimate, every decision he makes is illegitimate.

And that is precisely how Democrats have acted.

And here is the rub: GOP will do the same inane thing if Biden wins.

The cycle of idiocy continues.

Trump filling the courts is not illegitimate. It is largely the cause of Obama failing to do his job and filling open seats as soon as they came up.

The fact that Trump has been more competent than Obama on this is one of the most stunning historical hiccups of all time.

Then came Brett Kavanaugh.

The behavior of Democrats on this confirmation process was ATROCIOUS. Especially Feinstein and Kamala Harris, both of who like LIED while questioning witnesses during the hearings.

The fact that Biden and Harris are now on the ticket...is ironic.

There is, to this date, less evidence that Kavanaugh broke the law in this incident as a teenager...than there is that JOE BIDEN ASSAULTED A WOMAN AS A SITTING SENATOR.

That is literally the standard Democrats want us to use. Are you kidding me?

Using the Democrats own logic on Kavanaugh, Biden (and Trump, FWIW) would be UNFIT FOR THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT.

But hey, somehow, we've completely forgotten that now.

So that brings us to RBG's seat.

To me, this was always easy: If there is an open seat, the President should get to nominate someone.

And the Senate should take it up and give that person and up and down vote.

Period. End of story.

Any other nuance in this really is garbage from both sides. They have both played games with our courts and SCOTUS for decades, and are now surprised we are about to fall into the deep pit of darkness...when they are the ones that build the pit.

Miguel Estrada should have gotten an up and down vote.

Merrick Garland should have gotten an up and down vote.

Whoever Trump nominates...should get an up and down vote.

Of course, the problem is...all of these events already happened.

GOP is CONVINCED Democrats play dirty with their nominees.

Democrats are CONVINCED GOP play dirty with their nominees.

And they are both right.

So even though every judge should get an up and down vote, the pathetic behavior of our political elites makes that rule going forward garbage, because there is too much water under the bridge.

So what now?

I have no idea. Trump and Biden are probably the two worst men in modern American history to fix this problem. I literally mean that. Even Hillary would be better fit. They both are hypocrites and don't have the moral standing to make the case to anyone.

And now, Dems are SURE they are in the right, and are arguing for packing the courts, ending the filibuster, etc, etc...which are all actually BIGGER violation of norms than what we have already seen.

This is the Dems, literally, as the country is burning...

The irony is this same logic is why Trump won.

Republicans were sick and tired of Dems behaving poorly, running roughshod over the minority, without much concern for individual rights.

So they voted for Trump, even though they disliked him, and hoped he'd burn everything down.

So, we have Trump (who doesn't care and is burning everything down) and Biden (who may care but doesn't have the strength to fight his party, who now doesn't care and wants to burn everything down).

Man, are we screwed.

And no...I have nothing positive to say about any of it.

I am usually an optimist. I am an idealist at heart.

But I have no idea how we fix this. None. We don't have ethical, moral leaders that will do the right thing EVEN IF IT HURTS THEM POLITICALLY.

That is what we need today.

Things are going to get worse.