There was a plot line in the show called The West Wing where congressional leadership essentially picked the VPOTUS. It's fiction, but that "fiction" was based on a romanticized view of real-life politics and government. Hardball politics been around a lot longer than Cocaine Mitch. Borking is a thing.

Yeah, I was kinda nodding to that by mentioning Ben Nelson. Had Dems been more willing to demolish more norms to get what they wanted, we could have seen a public option in the ACA - the House passed it, but Max Baucus killed it in committee, because:

Dems could have blown up some of these norms to get through some of the more liberal proposals they wanted. They chose not to.

Unless he succeeds in entrenching a permanent majority of rubber-stamping conservative justices that ensure decisions like Shelby County v. Holder and poll taxes for former felons (on Trump's shortlist is one of the judges in that decision!) are just the start of the GOP coasting to easy election wins for a generation. Imagine the kind of voting rights shenanigans + polling place removal red states will pull once John Roberts is in the 4-vote liberal minority and there is effectively no more oversight.

That's not to say I think Bork should be on the court, but rather the measures a political party will take halt a nomination.

Huh, so Reagan didn't get to nominate anyone after Robert Bork?

lol, incredible. Remember this?

Well, taking that into account, let's all pour out a glass for our fallen comrade Robert Bork and the utter tragedy that he was nominated to SCOTUS, rejected (including by members of his own party!!!), and replaced with Anthony Kennedy who was then approved unanimously. Talk about the "nut low of crying", holy ****ing ****.

Bork got a full hearing and several Rs ended up voting against him. How is that comparable to Garland not getting a vote so that individual Rs wouldn’t have to take heat for their votes?

It’s like the difference between going to trial and getting convicted and getting black bagged into the back of an unmarked van.

If Dems had enough consensus or party discipline they could have passed a version of Obamacare closer to what Obama originally proposed.

If Republicans had enough consensus or party discipline, Republican skinny appeal would have passed.

These are episodes of people moving beyond pure tribal/party politics. I personally think they are episodes that, generally, should be encouraged. The more we entrench into respective camps, the worse politics becomes and the less representative of us the elective officials become.

I never claimed that McConnell invented the concept of abusing norms. I said he had elevated the abuse of norms to a new level.

Trump is the same. He isn't the first president to lie or gaslight the country. But he has elevated lying and gaslighting to previously unimaginable levels.

It's a feeble defense to say that abuse of norms existed before McConnell or that lying and gaslighting existed before Trump. Sure. They did. But volume and magnitude matter.

You really have to go all the way back to Andrew Jackson to find anything comparable in terms of narcissism, corruption, dishonesty (total disregard for the truth is more like it), incompetence, willingness to incite violence, and sheer disregard for the well being of the country. There were presidents that come close on one or two of the dimensions but Andrew Jackson and Trump are basically alone in maxing out all the autocrat stats.

Trump is the worse of the two just because of modern media.

This sounds about right. Disregard for the truth and disregard for the well-being of the country are the hallmarks of the Trump presidency.

One thing that makes me crazy about people who continue to defend Trump is that we aren't even living in the country that Trump wanted to create when he took office. People have mostly forgotten the peak lunacy of the first eight months of the Trump presidency, when Bannon was Chief Strategist. But for the relative strength of U.S. institutions, it could have been so much worse. And now those institutions are much more wobbly than they were in 2017.

This is why H. Reids decision is important. It opened the floodgates for political expediency, and closed the door to "obstruction", i.e. the filibuster. After Reid did that, it makes no sense for either party to reinstate the filibuster. They would only be hindering the confirmation of their own judges. Do you really think the Democrats were not going to filibuster Trump judges? It was called the nuclear option for a reason. The tit-for-tat has already occured. Now we live with the results. We are at the end game of this war on judges, at least for the next 20-30 years.

Are you under the impression that Democrats invoked the nuclear option and that was the end, Republicans have only ever used what Democrats already allowed?

I had a pretty simple question and you replied with a barrage of ad hominem and no answer. Can you answer the question?

No, your premise was baseless, and I attempted to clarify, but you reassert the incorrect premise, demanding an answer, like you alway do, and send the thread into a derail. I'm not answering your ****ing questions. Get over it.

LOL.

Me: Are you under the impression that Democrats invoked the nuclear option and that was the end, Republicans have only ever used what Democrats already allowed?

IHIV: Also IHIV: wow look at you goofy, derailing the thread again by...asking me a question

The fact that you think I would answer questions from you is rather arrogant. I've repeatedly told you I limit my interactions with you because I think you are a toxic narcissist, but you keep trying to engage with me. How many times do you have to be told I can't stand you and I will ignore you for the most part? You should take I don't want to talk to you for what it is, but you continue to seek this response for some reason, consequently hijacking threads.

LOL. You responded to dozens of my posts today. Literally the only time you pull this made-up "I limit my interaction with you" card is when you're getting clowned on and need a life jacket.

The reason I asked, fwiw, is because you seem clueless about how Neil Gorsuch got appointed:

Reid's decision only allowed to lower court judges. There was still the possibility of filibustering SCOTUS judges. Republicans killed that. You're welcome for educating your ignorance on the subject.

And those conversation end soon as you start manipulating ****. The context is tit-for-tat. You want to argue the GOP tat is worse than the Democrats tit. Go for it. I don't care. The end game is ideological justices, which you now get. H. Reid stopped moderate justices from being appointed with oppositional Senates.

Since you find Reid so important in this discussion, let's say he never did that but everything else plays out the same. Republicans take the Senate in 2014. Scalia dies in 2016.

What plays out differently, iyo? Do you think McConnell holds confirmation hearings for Garland if not for what Reid did two years earlier? I don't, and reading your posts from the past few days it very much seems like you don't either. But you keep writing about Harry Reid in all your posts for some bizarre reason.

Democrats would be able to filibuster Trump judicial nominees, or at least have a say in who is selected to avoid the filibuster, you know, like every other Republican/Democrat administration. The tit-for-tat obstruction was better than ideological justices being packed on the court by either side.

I think we're missing a step here.

Do you think Mitch would have let Garland through, or not? If he doesn't, you think Republicans don't invoke the nuclear option to get Gorsuch in?

(my prediction: you punt and don't answer. But I'm willing to be surprised!)

You keep trying to relitigate one particular judge. I'm talking at a much more macro level. Once again, your premise is meant as some pie throwing contest about Garland not getting a vote. What the **** ever. There are a bunch of judges that have not received a vote from oppositional Senates. Garland not getting a vote is not that odd, other than he is a SCOTUS nominee as opposed to other federal judiciaries.

No, it's not. Like, you wrote this sentence:

This is you - after days of writing posts about how both sides play the same games for political expediency - making an assertion that Republicans would not have invoked the nuclear option (if they did, you couldn't write that sentence). That's an extremely controversial assertion!

Well, the nuclear option was not taken until 2013, by a Democrat-controlled Senate. They had not done it before. And it made no sense for them not to employ it when the Democrats did. I see no evidence they would have invoked the nuclear option, if H. Reid had not done it first.

Hahahahahaha!

So, when it suits you, both sides play the same games for political expediency:

...but now that it doesn't suit you, apparently Mitch would have held up the Garland seat just to let Democrats filibuster it forever without ever invoking the nuclear option. ****ing hilarious