GOP: Biden Can’t Pack Courts We Spent All This Time Packing For Ourselves!
Joe Biden has a comfortable lead over Donald Trump in most presidential polls conducted outside of Trump's imagination -- or as Trump tweeted this morning, all the polls that DON'T MATTER, because they are not boats we guess. But the very serious media is concerned Biden might set his campaign on fire because of his refusal to answer a single question about expanding the Supreme Court or, as Mitch McConnell has convinced them to call it, “court packing."
Biden has remained on message, arguing that the press should focus on Republicans' actual, ongoing daylight democracy heist.
"Look, the only court packing is going on right now. It's going on with the Republicans packing the court now," Biden argued to reporters as he departed for Erie, Pa., claiming that "it's not constitutional what they're doing."
The media claims Biden is “deflecting" and some blue-checkmark geniuses have compared this to Trump's refusal to say whether he's tested negative yet for COVID-19. It seems as if far too few journalists have learned anything from their obsession with Hillary Clinton's emails, which might've helped destroy the country. (Their obsession, not the emails.)
It makes sense for Biden to hold onto whatever leverage Democrats might have to delay Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Announcing that he'd support expanding the Court concedes defeat on a battle we're still fighting. That's not especially motivating. It also bolsters McConnell's argument for fast-tracking an extremist onto the Supreme Court before Trump has his ass handed to him and McConnell likely loses control of the Senate.
Conservative control trolls argue it's off-brand for Biden to even consider changes to the Supreme Court that might give democracy a fighting chance. He's running as Mr. Norms, after all. Although Trump has violated every conceivable norm and standard of human decency, Republicans who weren't overtly racist stuck with him primarily because of the courts. They didn't seem to mind that Trump was trading in property stolen from Barack Obama.
.@RichLowry, tell us more about these norms you’re so worried about and what, if anything, you’ve ever done to prot… https://t.co/HzxW96FoaA— Reed Galen (@Reed Galen) 1602369649.0
Rich Lowry at the National Review argued that expanding the Supreme Court would “destroy the legitimacy of one of our key governing institutions." He must've been asleep for the 13 months Republicans reduced the size of the Supreme Court to eight justices after Scalia died. Senators Ted Cruz and even Saint John McCain claimed they would've kept the number at eight for potentially another four years if Hillary Clinton had won.
Trump is an especially stupid criminal, so he can't resist boasting about how many court vacancies Obama “left" for him to fill. McConnell blocked almost all of Obama's nominees from 2015 through 2016. (You guys really should've voted in 2014, a key election year.) Barrett currently enjoys a seat on the federal bench that McConnell stole from Obama. The National Review supported the Republican Senate's obstruction because it stymied Obama's agenda, which they considered doo-doo.
Conservatives have used a lot of doublespeak to justify McConnell pretending Obama wasn't actually president, so that Trump could appoint almost as many federal appellate judges in four years as Obama managed in eight. That's somehow not packing, yet conservatives, including the editors of the National Review, repeatedly referred to Obama's “court-packing schemes" when he was simply doing his job. Conservatives hate when Democrats actually wield power and view it as illegitimate. They're like a spoiled child who won't let you share their toys. You can't play with them. You can only “hold" them for a minute or so.
Mitch McConnell says the quiet part loud here https://t.co/O9qG4WRm2o— Molly Jong-Fast🏡 (@Molly Jong-Fast🏡) 1602425403.0
Like most sentient life, McConnell is smarter than Trump, but he couldn't resist toasting his own evil during an interview last year with Sean Hannity.
HANNITY: I was shocked that former President Obama left so many [judicial] vacancies and didn't try to fill those positions.
LOL! Obama's so shiftless!
MCCONNELL: I'll tell you why. I was in charge of what we did the last two years of the Obama administration.
The majority leader then laughed like your neighbor's creepy ghoul Halloween decoration.
There's nothing specifically illegal about how the GOP packed the courts. There's also nothing illegal about Biden expanding the courts and neutralizing Trump's judicial legacy. Anyone whining about “norms" at this point is either hopelessly naive or full of crap.
Wonkette's official position remains that Democrats need to be absolute motherfuckers. (Of course, while not breaking the law or violating the Constitution. We're not Republicans.)
Too much is at stake to pretend we're in a "West Wing" rerun.
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
