Yeah, I don't remember anybody thinking McConnell was sincere back in 2016. Or, he was sincere about not wanting Merrick Garland on the court. The sneering invocation of his ad hoc principles was just smarmy mockery.

The united states is not a democratic republic, it's a plutocracy (at best... a kleptocracy at worst). The republicans win more often because their message to the plutocrats is clear, simple, direct, and fulfilling: "We'll give you more wealth and power". The democrats have a more complicated message (though they also tend to give the plutocrats more wealth and power too). Since the plutocrats ultimately control things, they go to great lengths and spare no expense to give the republicans every fair and unfair advantage possible.

That's why you're seeing republicans flat out lie more and more. It's become so unbalanced in their favor that they don't have to try anymore.

The last time it was this bad, it took a combination of the collapse of the stock market, a global war, and a major climate disaster to finally get a little balance restored.

@2 Its a Democratic Republic with a structural bias towards concentrating political power in a provincial aristocracy supported by a savagely exploited underclass baked in at the founding. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

Yeah, a big part of what's currently driving me crazy is that, by my understanding of our backward-ass system, the Piglord's nominee probably and actually (gulp) should (ugh) get the opportunity to be confirmed. Provided the nominating and vetting processes aren't hustled though without due process, I've got to figure that the intent of the framers was to give the President that mandate for the entire four years of his/her tenure. Which really only speaks to how much more infuriating it is that those morally repugnant fuckwads failed to adhere to any moral, humanistic or political sense of decency back in 2016.

Holy freaking fuck, I've been saying this for years now, but why can't we just abolish the systemically undemocratic Senate? Or at the very least strip it of it's ridiculously disproportionate power and influence over the lives of otherwise decent people. But just go ahead and abolish it. And not that I likely need to clarify my stance here, but I certainly do NOT hope that we get a Piglord nominee, even as I think there's a case to be made that he should.

@4 Yeah! Me too - abolish the Senate. And the states - replace them with rationalized administrative districts. Also the office of the President since a unitary executive inevitably lapses towards authoritarianism. Supreme Court appointments should get a fixed term.

Basically throw out the constitution and start from scratch. Events since 1787 have demonstrated that the American pattern isn't stable. Westminster model has been more successful, even if the original is having some trouble these days. So lets admit our failure and copy that.

Agree about the system being entirely rigged in the interest of the rich, and designed to be so from its inception. "Founding Father" James Madison stated in the Federalist Papers of the need to "...protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." And of course, the screamingly undemocratic "Electoral College." But, the problem isn't simply the sociopaths at the top. The real problem is that "majority," or as I call them, The Herd of Fools. Case in point, Kentucky and Mitch McConnell. This man could not be more clearly an enemy of the working class, and yet Kentucky voters, residents of the 4th POOREST state in the US, just can't seem to stop shooting themselves in the foot (how fortunate that they're all so well armed... ) and re-electing this privileged, vicious scumbag for the last 35 years, as they will almost certainly do again in 2020. Very discouraging.

@7: Now jump in your time machine and say that in 2016. I'm sure your position on the matter will not have changed on the slightest based on the person in charge of submitting nominees.

It was Harry Reid who broke the filibuster rule for Federal judges that paved the way for Mitch McConnell to do it with Supreme Court justices.

Time for the Dems to get around to drafting all the articles of impeachment they've been sitting on for the entire administration, which should lock up the Senate nicely. "Oh, your trial is already done and you've chosen not to acquit already? Don't worry, here's a new set. Trump has broken so many laws that you know we can easily keep this up for at least through Election Day."

@8: Yeah, but the levels of scum are different by several levels of magnitude, and to argue otherwise is to trumpet your ignorance about modern US politics.

@10: Real cute. Now, for full credit, state why Harry Reid did it.

@7 That analysis studiously misses the point because rules have both letter and spirit. And its the spirit of these rules that's getting trampled on here. As far as it goes, Congress has the unrestricted power to determine the size, structure and jurisdiction of the Federal Courts. So if we're going to just go by chapter and verse, there should be no objection to adding another half dozen seats to the court. And to start explicitly exempting legislation from judicial review.

Its right there in the Constitution.

@12: Partial credit suites me fine - so go ahead, be my guest.

Back in '16, I thought Obama should have taken the Senate's silence as assent, sworn in Merrick Garland and told him to start showing up for work.

Why on earth do I have to choose one or the other? He's a lying hypocrite.

A Democracy means the majority of the people decide.

At best we're a restricted Oligopoly pretending to be a Representative Monarchy, which is why Trumpler thinks he's our King.

Even Barbados is more free and democratic than we are.

@22 is pretty entertainingly read in the voice of the Dr Seuss narrator describing the personality of The Grinch.

This Supreme Court nominee is Obama's pick, yeah?

@15: He did it because the GOP was doing their typical racist, obstructionist bullshit and blocking Obama from appointing any judges at all; you know, that duty outlined in the Constitution that Mitch and the rest of the GOP was pissing all over. So Reid had no choice. The GOP was applying one set of rules for everyone else, and recognizing no rules for themselves. I'll be charitable and assume you simply forgot over the course of this decade under Trump, while you have been working so feverishly to provide cover to every daily outrage against the rule of law.

@20: Agreed with 21. Go fuck yourself to death and let us be blissfully rid of you.

@Charles, thank you.

@26 Knat, Very well said on all counts.

Got eem!

If McConnell went through the nomination process with Garland and the Republican Senate did not confirm him, would everyone be more or less pissed at McConnell right now? I think everyone would be more angry.

@26: Oh yes, just because they didn't have the majority in the Senate - Dingy Harry (as Rush calls him) invoked the nuclear option that caused the entire mess and the predicament we're in now.

Thanks Knat.

@32: So you just... don't respond on topic now? You're devolving into a lazy troll that ignores responses except to spout Rush "Let the poor children dumpster dive" Limbaugh talking points? Well, it's not like my opinion of you could go much lower. Hopefully that public political masochism is still really working for you; you'll need a higher pain tolerance when they start stripping you of your rights the minute they have a 6/3 majority.

@36: It's not a talking point. It's a nickname.

@37: It was a deflection to ignore the topic. Because you're just a troll.

@38: Which topic? Our discourse would be less frustrating for you if you were clearer.

Anyway Knat - All I was doing was adding a fact to the conversation. And I simply added a little snark on Harry Reid and you took it all out of proportion.

LIAR, HYPOCRITE? I don't use terms that complimentary for the pile of scum whose name rhymes with BITCH!

No. The media should tell the truth that McConnell is in nearly every way a superior and more effective politician than any Democrat, and that until they put an end to their pathetic history of bringing knives to gun fights, Democrats will continue to be bested by those whose political strategy is demonstrably superior to theirs.

What Mudede is advocating is the same old pathetic non-strategy that has plagued the Democratic Party for my entire adult life. (How would you feel about a chess player whose main strategy was to whine to the press about how "ruthless" his opponents' strategies were?)

Progressives own this. Obama could have gone bare knuckles for Garland. He didn't. RBG was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009. That's right, 2009! Yet she clung to her selfish desire to serve until 90, when she could have resigned during Obama's term and been safely replaced. Democrats ran an astoundingly weak candidate, perhaps the only one capable of actually losing to Trump, in 2016. Even now, Biden refuses to issue an ultimatum to expand the size of the Supreme Court should RBG's seat be filled, even though such an ultimatum is the only thing capable of possibly persuading the Republicans to recalculate.

Yes, it stings to read the above, but there is A LOT more we can do to change how OUR OWN SIDE plays the game, than to change how the other side does.