Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal on February 23, 2016 even to consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland created an unnecessary and unprecedented Constitutional crisis. It is now almost six months since McConnell stated his refusal and almost five months since Garland was nominated by President Obama. Under normal circumstances, the Senate would have long since completed its consideration of Garland and—given Garland’s unassailable credentials and admirers on both side of the aisle—the Supreme Court would now have its ninth member.
By refusing to consider Garland, McConnell created the conditions for Donald Trump’s frightening August 9th Second Amendment threat against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump implied that “Second Amendment” people might violently oppose the nomination of new Supreme Court justices, perhaps by attacking Clinton or perhaps by attacking Supreme Court justices themselves. If Garland had already been confirmed, Trump would not be in a position to encourage the assassination of presidential candidates and members of the highest court in the land.
McConnell’s radical refusal to do his Constitutional duty by considering Garland not only left a long and unnecessary gap in the membership of the court, it helped to foster the conditions of the successful candidacy of Donald Trump. McConnell’s refusal makes it clear that Capitol Hill is no longer be a place for peaceful and respectful, if sometimes contentious, transactions between different branches of government. Stepping into the vacuum of leadership created by McConnell and his fellow Republican Congressional leaders, Donald Trump entered the presidential arena. Trump’s candidacy is a candidacy of radical disruption and his violent threats are entering the void of respectful discourse and Constitutional transaction created by McConnell and his Republican followers in the Senate. Put very simply, without McConnell’s refusal to consider Garland, we would not have Trump’s incitement to violence against the process of Supreme Court nomination and the rule of law.
The decent and responsible thing for McConnell to do at this critical juncture is to permit consideration of Garland’s candidacy to proceed. This would help to defuse the present dangerous situation and would send a signal that Trump’s radical political rhetoric is not acceptable to either party.
Please understand that I’m not holding my breath as I wait for Garland to be considered. However, considering Garland would be the right thing for McConnell to do. It would also have the immediate effect of taking the wind out of Trump’s rhetorical sails. And it would effectively distance the GOP and the Senate from Trump’s most frightening language. It would certainly be a more concrete and meaningful gesture than yet another mumbling disavowal of the words, if not the candidacy, of Donald Trump.
I would urge all Kossacks to contact your Senators, both Democrat and Republican. And I would urge you to insist that in light of Donald Trump’s threat to the peace and order of the United States, McConnell should immediately proceed with the consideration of Merrick Garland’s nomination for Justice of the Supreme Court.