Dear Democrats, let's go on this short walk down memory lane. We don't have to go far, just to October 2016.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, "patriot," promises that if the Republicans keep their Senate majority, there won't be any Supreme Court confirmations for President Hillary Clinton.
The exact quote: "I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up. […] I promise you."
There was rampant discussion, back in October, about the virtues of an eight-member court, coming from Republican senators and conservative scholars and activists. Like this one.
There’s no reason Democrats couldn’t insist on a Trump SCOTUS nominee to be above the age of 80. Or female. Or not a tool of the religious right. Or not a misogynist.
Republicans stole this Supreme Court seat from President Obama and justified doing so with any number of outlandish theories and justifications. That was after Obama extended an olive branch to them in nominating Merrick Garland, a nominee that no less than Orrin Hatch had offered up as a consensus nominee. That’s the same Hatch who just erased Democrats from his Finance Committee to ram through cabinet nominees who had out-and-out lied to him and the committee.
Democrats do not need outlandish justifications for resisting this nominee, for rejecting the completely unprincipled way Republicans held this seat open They have the moral high ground. Blocking Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch would be a defense of the Senate, a defense of the presidency and of the constitution.