Democratic Party Fan Twitter is really upset at the suggestion that Feinstein's praise of Lindsey Graham might actually have a detrimental effect on Jaime Harrison's Senate bid, but the logic here seems pretty straightforward to me!
Right! Beyond any doubt Graham sees Feinstein's praise of his otherwise-controversial Supreme Court hearing as a big win, and somehow I doubt Jaime Harrison is too thrilled about it. But Savvy Twitter People think you're stupid for caring, you naive chump.
Anyway, usually the Dem Defense Squad argues that party leaders have a brilliant plan. No one could possibly argue that of Feinstein, so they've retreated to arguing that nothing she said could possibly have any effect. But she's a US senator! She's a ranking member! It's absurd!
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The people who want Democrats to do something differently have generally been quite clear about what those things are:
-refuse to participate in normal hearings
-use procedural tactics to obstruct
-simply be louder and more strident
-retaliate in kind after the election
The intolerably smug subset of this site that goes "Ah, you see, because I am smart, I know 47 is less than 53" isn't interested in practical outcomes, but if they were, they'd be forced to recognize that the totality of politics isn't captured in vote counts.
Moreover, because political events are deeply unpredictable, a posture of maximalist opposition sets you up to take advantage of unexpected future opportunities. For instance, the judge you're trying to oppose may superspread a deadly disease to half her legislative supporters.
Imagine a world in which decisions that completely warp the politics of the nation, like Citizen's United, and dispense with decades-old achievements on rights and justice, like Shelby, come five or six times a year.
That's the world ahead of us if we don't expand the courts.
People simply do not understand how bad it will get. It won't be a marginally more conservative court. Conservatives ALREADY have controlled the court for nearly 50 years.
It will be a court that will remake America in the image of far-right fever dreams.
It may not happen immediately - I suspect they'll save the very worst until a period of divided government, when Democrats will have no opportunity to respond. Given that liberals will never again win a voting rights case, divided government will come soon.
So what is Democrats' plan to address the 6-3 court, which will be more effective at advancing far-right policy aims than any Republican presidential administration in history?
I mean, is the plan just to go to hearings, be polite to Barrett, and then let her ban abortion, eliminate the Voting Rights Act, wipe out the EPA, strike down Biden's covid measures, end birthright citizenship? And then to say "Please, give money! Go to ActBlue dot com!"
The worst thing is, I'm positive that a lot of Senate Democrats think that, by being trolled and heckled into giving up without a fight, they've actually won.
This is false. Give up the pathetic belief that speaking out will invariably backfire.
These people screwed up everything in 2016, they've changed nothing and expressed no contrition.
Nonetheless you are still beneath them. You're not allowed to criticize them. They are certain their contempt for you is justified because all the other people like them share it.
Political journalism exists at the top of society, sharing substantial responsibility for the awful state of affairs we live in.
But the only criticism it takes seriously is internal criticism, so this culpable elite has become yet another unaccountable priesthood.
There are real people's lives and wellbeing on the line, but how dare you suggest that political journalism act as anything but a cozy New York/DC social club. Sure, Smug here glibly supports lawlessness, disinformation, and xenophobia - but he's in the club. You're not, peon.
She's an access journalist who reliably foregrounds Trump's own bogus narratives and whose "critiques" of those narratives are carefully framed to be visible primarily to the already-converted, and often require close reading to detect. People are tired of it.
A lot of elite pundit types think the rest of us are too stupid to understand what she's doing, but we do understand it. We just don't care. It's a parlor game for New York and DC elites, not us, and it has consistently helped Trump by hiding the truth about who and what he is.