Have you heard Republican senators saying that they take the duty of confirming a Supreme Court justice as the most important thing they'll do, that they'll consider their fitness for office, their jurisprudence to date, their adherence to precedent, blah, blah, blah? Well, their leadership blew that all to hell Thursday.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 guy in the Republican leadership, told reporters that the precedent of the McConnell Rule—not confirming a Supreme Court justice in an election year—doesn't really count. "We'll have the same President after the midterms as we have right now so this lame argument that's being made somehow analogizing this to the transition from President Obama to President Trump doesn't work."
Two things: There was no "transition" at the time. When Antonin Scalia died, there wasn't even a Republican nominee for president yet. There were eight months between the vacancy and the election. But even more important, we will not have the same Senate after the midterms, and the current Senate is essentially tied up—51-49 assuming ailing Arizona Sen. John McCain will ever be back. But more importantly, what Cornyn is doing here is acknowledging that Republicans have totally abdicated their constitutional role of advise and consent on nominations. They'll simply rubber stamp whatever Donald Trump tells them to.
Cornyn always says out loud those things that aren't supposed to be public knowledge, like the fact that the Republican Senate is Trump's puppet. But what about that savvy Senate Leader Mitch McConnell? Well, he admits he totally made up the McConnell Rule out of whole cloth. The justification he used, the supposed Biden Rule? He didn't even know about Biden's floor speech when he announced one hour after Scalia's death had been confirmed that there would be no replacement by President Obama.
He also admits that he kept up with his blockade—in fact doubled down on it—when he knew that Donald Trump was going to be that nominee.
"I didn't anticipate that, but the president’s decision to declare what kind of people he would put on the Supreme Court was reassuring to a whole lot of Republicans who were skeptical about him, and it played a major role in the outcome of the election."
He didn't then and doesn't now give a shit what Trump might do to the country. He wants to be the agent for establishing the Federalist Society's Supreme Court—period. If that means he sells the country out to Vladimir Putin, so be it. He's already destroyed the Senate, so he might as well go for the other branches while he's at it.