Ron Brownstein/CNN:
Fight over Ginsburg succession poses stark question: Can majority rule survive in US?
But if Democrats can build a sustainable political majority from the growing groups that now lean toward them -- younger generations, people of color and college-educated Whites, all of them centered in major metropolitan areas -- it seems unlikely those groups will quiescently accept existing rules that allow a preponderantly White, Christian and non-urban minority to block their agenda.
If Democrats win unified control of government in November, the pressure to reconsider those rules would likely begin immediately with demands to
end the Senate filibuster, which empowers small states;
ending the filibuster in turn could position Democrats to overhaul voting laws, pass a new Voting Rights Act,
add the District of Columbia and possibly Puerto Rico as states, and even potentially
enlarge the Supreme Court (especially if the court strikes down some of those other initiatives).
Before we get to the SCOTUS fight, some important pandemic observations.
Greg Sargent/WaPo:
The hidden reason Trump’s ‘October surprise’ will likely fail
The public debate over Trump’s vaccine strategy has typically focused on his efforts to corrupt the vaccine approval process and the ways this will backfire by making it less likely that voters will believe him if he does go through with such an announcement.
But there’s a more fundamental reason this will likely fail for Trump. It’s this: Whenever a vaccine is introduced, a long and complex process will follow that will require sustained, engaged, non-megalomaniacal presidential leadership, all conducted in the national interest, a concept Trump cannot begin to fathom.
In short, even if Trump were to get public credit for an imminent vaccine, it’s likely the public would not trust him to manage what comes next.
Parenthetically, the SCOTUS fight makes the public not trust anything Republicans say.
Erin Banco/Daily Beast:
Fauci on Trump’s Vaccine Boasts: No One’s Seen the Data
In an interview with The Daily Beast, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert says he’s worried about the lack of trust in a potential vaccine.
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has boasted about his administration’s efforts to produce a safe COVID-19 vaccine while simultaneously declaring that the distribution of that vaccine to the American public would happen “very soon.”
But Trump has not seen the vaccine data.
In fact, no one in the administration has seen it. In an interview with The Daily Beast Monday evening, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said there is only one individual who has access to the data that would show whether a vaccine is viable.
STATNews:
A vaccine alone won’t stop Covid-19. We also need a trusted plan for it
At the same time, physicians, scientists, and the public are increasingly concerned that the speed with which Covid-19 vaccines are being developed, as well as the unprecedented political pressure being exerted on the FDA, as occurred surrounding controversial emergency use authorizations (EUA) for Covid-19 treatments, may pose undue risks to the vaccine development and evaluation process — and thus to the population — and that an unproven vaccine might similarly receive an emergency use authorization.
And back to SCOTUS.
Politico:
Republicans bet it all on the court — again
GOP senators see a Supreme Court battle as a way to help protect their imperiled majority.
“Recent history has clearly shown that these sorts of fighting bring Republicans together,” said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, who gave state-by-state presentations to the party on Tuesday. “And I anticipate that will happen in 2020, just as it did in 2016 and 2018.”
But Democratic Sen. Jon Tester won reelection in 2018 in conservative Montana after voting against Kavanaugh; Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) won after coming out against Kavanaugh, as did Democratic incumbents from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin — all states Trump won in 2016.
“They won a mandate in 2018? They lost the frickin’ House,” Tester said in an interview. “They’re making excuses for something that they know is totally corrupt.”
Republicans are handing Democrats a reason to undertake massive reform
For Democrats, “Look what you made us do” should become their guiding mantra if they win the White House and control of Congress. It shouldn’t be used as a whiny excuse for their own sins the way Republicans use it.
Instead, it should stand as an ample justification for resetting American democracy.
When Democrats say, “Look what you made us do,” they’ll be explaining how their own agenda has necessarily been shaped by the destruction the Republican Party has wrought.
Jamison Foser/Crooked:
How Court Packing Can Protect the Election—and Democracy
As everyone surely knows by now, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican Party have vowed to fill Ginsburg’s seat this year, even after they refused to allow President Obama to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2016 on the dishonest pretext that it would be improper to fill a vacancy that arises in an election year. McConnell and the GOP can’t be shamed into sticking to the principles they stated in 2016, because they were never really principles at all—it was just a naked power grab, an unprecedented theft of a Supreme Court seat. There’s value in reminding the public of the inconsistency in the GOP’s actions then and now—it’s an important illustration of the fact that the Republican Party will do anything to accumulate power.
But actually preventing Republicans from filling the seat requires much more—they must be made to believe that rushing a right-wing justice on to the Court in the next few weeks will hurt them electorally, and to no end, because their deed will be quickly undone. The only thing Republicans care about is their own power, and they must see that illegitimately filling this Supreme Court vacancy would reduce, not enhance, their power
Adam Jentleson/NY Times:
Democrats Need a Plan. Fast.
Here’s how they can apply maximum pressure, brand the process as the illegitimate farce it is and lay the groundwork for desperately needed reform.
The all-important question is, does the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, have the votes? Nothing matters more to him than the courts, so the safe bet is that he will find them. The gauntlet of hypocrisy Republican senators will have to run will be brutal and will likely hurt those in close re-election races. But let’s assume that a nominee moves forward.
There is no silver bullet available to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, to block the nominee. Distraught Democrats should understand that senators’ options are limited, but Democratic senators should understand the depth of voters’ desire to see their senators do everything possible to stop Mr. Trump from replacing R.B.G. This is an illegitimate process, and that is how Democrats should approach it. A core function of the Senate is to “advise and consent” on federal court nominees. Jamming a Supreme Court nominee through in direct contradiction of Republican senators’ pledges not to do so, with votes already being cast in the election, will be a clear abdication of any reasonable claim to the institution’s constitutional responsibility.
Jonathan V Last/Bulwark:
The SCOTUS Vote Is a Sign of Republican Weakness
They think they're going to get blown out on November 3.
Here are the two data points that explain why Republicans are going to push a SCOTUS nomination through before November 3:
That’s it. That’s your explanation.
The polling on who should be making this SCOTUS pick is pretty definitive. Only 23 percent of respondents said that Trump should be the one making the nomination.
So why would Republicans rush into a high-profile fight where they’re on the wrong side of public opinion by nearly 3-to-1? And in the process weaken their presidential nominee and make a bunch of vulnerable senators even more vulnerable?
Because they believe Trump is going to lose.
Your musical interlude: