On the heels of Hillary’s nomination, if I were President Obama, I would say this:
If Merrick Garland does not get a fair hearing and vote before election day, then I will do exactly what Mitch McConnell has asked me to do. I will withdraw his nomination, and let the next president pick the Supreme Court nominee.
It's not often you get to threaten your opponent by giving them exactly what they asked for, but this has been a bizarre election year. I say we take advantage of it.
Let Hillary pick the next SCOTUS nominee.
Merrick Garland is the kind of nominee you get when you are in a position of weakness. Come November, that dynamic changes drastically.
As I am watching Republicans do backflips trying to defend the staunch racism of the head of their party, who just demanded to be tried by a Caucasian judge for his corrupt dealings, it hit me. The Trumpster Fire is not just going to consume the party: its on it's way to burning down the whole, bigoted lot of the conservative movement.
Hillary is going to win the election and we will win the Senate. The only question now is by how much. The millions of new voters who have registered to vote against Trump are not likely to be forgiving to the party responsible for him. This goes double for Florida, which turns deep blue in presidential years—and more so for this one. South Florida Hispanics will come out in full force, and polls released today show the likely Democratic candidate beating all likely contenders for the GOP. Joining Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, which are polling strong for Team Blue, that's the Senate. I expect New Hampshire and North Carolina to fall as well.
As an added bonus, next year will be the death knell of the filibuster, and it's about damn time. Demanding a supermajority for everything, even routine business, was always stupid but in recent years has become so abused it has gotten absurd. Since the NRA will demand a filibuster to any nominee by a Democrat—even Merrick Garland for absolutely no reason at all—the Dems won’t have a choice.
I guarantee you that if President Obama threatened to give Mitch McConnell what he is asking, Mitch would hold a confirmation hearing for Garland next week. I would only hope he wouldn’t.
Then he might have to deal with a nominee he really hates. I always thought Justice Barack Obama had a nice ring to it. (Although he wouldn’t be my first choice).