Only a party that was planning on being out of power for a long time, or a party that believes it will need the Court's help to retain power, would undertake the risk Senate Rs are about to undertake.
There is no reasonable argument in favor of expanding the number of SCOTUS seats if they leave this seat open until the next POTUS is sworn in. No one benefitted by differing standards or hypocrisy. They have a safe and legitimate conservative majority on the Court.
Conversely, if a party tries to cement a 6-3 majority on SCOTUS while, or even after, the voters have shown them the door, why wouldn't the opposition party change the number of seats?
That 6-3 Court will already be saddled with a legitimacy issue in the eyes of a huge percentage of the population. If you find yourself already in that situation, there's little downside to adding four liberal justices. It's better to have a compromised Court that has your back.
Maybe the bet they're making is that if the Ds change the number of seats it will only be to 11 and they'll still have a conservative majority. But I can't think of a single good reason for Ds to do that.
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