In the words of Thomas Paine, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
If Mitch McConnell goes through with his attempt to fill the Supreme Court seat now vacant due to the death of “The Notorious RBG” — after he blocked Obama from fulfilling his constitutional duty and obligation for 400 days back in 2016 by refusing to hold a vote on his nomination of Merrick Garland — all bets should be off when Biden takes office on January 20 since this would be hypocrisy of the highest order ever witnessed in modern-day politics. However, since Republicans have proven they have no shame, we can expect the senior senator from Kentucky to do his best to do tRump’s bidding and push through the nomination of a right-wing ideologue before the election.
But since the Constitution doesn’t specify the number of justices comprising the Supreme Court, the first order of business for Biden after he is sworn in — provided, of course, that he has enough votes in both houses of Congress to pass the legislation — should be to change the number of Justices on the Court to 15 and then pack the bench with progressive justices. And the louder conservatives howl the more I’d enjoy it.
Granted, FDR failed in his attempt to pack the Supreme Court with additional jurists back in 1937, an effort he engaged in because the court (as it was then constituted) consistently shot down New Deal legislation he considered critical to pulling the country out of the Great Depression, the worse economic calamity the country had ever experienced. But that was then, and this is now.
Of course, initiating such a move would be considered by Republicans to be naked political politicking at its worse on the part of Democrats, but so what? Keep in mind that Republicans refused to even consider Obama’s pick to fill the vacancy left by the death of Antonin Scalia and kept the seat open for 11 months, something that had not happened since the Civil War, But now they are going to attempt to break the precedent they set a scant four years ago when they stated the new president should get to make the nomination.
Let’s face it, the days of congeniality in American politics are long gone, in the far distant past, killed decades ago by vengeful right-wingers who would just as soon destroy the country if they can’t control it. It’s past time that progressives learn to play the same game of hardball politics that conservatives have been playing since they nominated Barry Goldwater back in 1964.
The goal of the left should be to grind the opposition to dust as soon as progressives seize the reins of power in Washington. Take no prisoners.
