Does Sen. Bennet really not get it? Does he really think Republicans will cooperate with Democrats?

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Monday April 03, 2017 · 6:59 PM PDT

2017/04/03 · 18:59

Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet — Sen. Michael Bennet

"Using the filibuster and nuclear option at this moment takes us in the wrong direction. I have spent the past several weeks trying to avoid this outcome. Changing the Senate rules now will only further politicize the Supreme Court and prevent the Senate from blocking more extreme judges in the future. I will oppose efforts to filibuster the nomination, and strongly encourage my colleagues not to use the nuclear option."

That’s Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet today. And he’s serious.

I am always amazed so many people actually argue that the way to keep the filibuster alive is by … not using it. It’s even more amazing when a U.S. senator with eight years on the job says it.

It’s simple. Mitch McConnell had already vowed that he didn’t respect the Democrats’ right to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee and would nuke the sucker the first time the Democrats tried to use it. Followed by a second, majority-rules vote to place the filibustered nominee on the bench.

What would have been utterly stupid is for the Democratic leadership to have thumbed its nose at the vast surge of grassroots energy we’re seeing across the country around myriad issues, including the filibuster. That’s exactly what letting Gorsuch put on the Supreme Court robes for the next four decades without the Senate version of a fang-and-claw fight would have done. It’s an absolutely perfect way to dissipate that passionate grassroots and determined energy, to turn still more people into cynics about working within the Democratic Party or engaging in politics at all. As if there weren’t enough of those already.

We have known from the moment Gorsuch was nominated that the Republicans would approve his confirmation. And we’ve always had a choice about whether to let them have it the easy way or the hard way. Bennet says to take the easy way. He says the best strategy is to surrender without a whimper on Gorsuch.

The Democratic leadership is taking the right approach. As with a score of other matters, Democrats need to fight this nominee with everything we’ve got even though we know the ultimate outcome. We cannot save the next vacancy on the Supreme Court from being filled by an even worse extremist later on by letting Gorsuch rise to the bench now without a filibuster. It doesn’t work that way. Knuckling under gains nothing. Not with the way modern Republicans operate. Trump can appoint far-right justices for as long as he’s still the man in the big chair in the Oval Office because McConnell will make it so.

Sen. Bennet is worried about the Senate becoming more politicized? He seems to have missed the nine months during which the Senate under McConnell’s leadership refused to meet with Merrick Garland or hold confirmation hearings for him. Perhaps he also missed the eight years of the Obama administration in which McConnell led the total obstruction of the president’s agenda, an obstruction that was agreed to by high GOP muckety-mucks even before Obama took the oath of office. Bennet is fooling himself if he thinks a handful of Democrats voting for Gorsuch will spur the Republicans to abandon their venomous, two-faced politics.

Should we make McConnell nuke the filibuster now for Gorsuch or should we let the man have his robes without a fight and wait with trepidation for, say, Ruth Bader Ginsburg to leave the court and then have McConnell nuke the filibuster so her replacement can be installed? In terms of political strategy, there is only one reasonable answer and the Democratic leadership has taken it.

Because now is the time to fight back even knowing we will be defeated. Procrastination is not strategy. A fight two or three years down the road is a will-’o-the-wisp. We likely have years of disruption ahead of us from Trump and Trumpism with unknown and potentially scary outcomes. Huge damage has already been done to our nation by the man squatting in the White House—damage domestically and overseas, some of it irreparable for years or more.

Every time we (as a party) opt to keep our powder dry, we lose an opportunity to show skill and spine at maneuver and tactics. Keeping powder dry, as Bennet has suggested, can get to be a bad habit. Next thing you know you can’t even find it. The times are not normal. We shouldn’t be treating them that way. Doing so weakens our resolve and lets us pretend that everything-will-be-okay-it’ll-be-all-right-no-worries.

Donald Trump is wounded. Will he be a badger? Will he wag the dog? Will he slink away, his crooked, lowlife entourage scattering in his wake? Who knows? But the fluidity of the situation means we can’t ease up on him. Otherwise he does what he hasn’t yet: consolidates power.

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Does Sen. Bennet really not get it? Does he really think Republicans will cooperate with Democrats?

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