1973

Does ‘cocaine Mitch’ care at all about optics anymore?

1974

Who gives a shit about optics. The base/constituents/donors only care about results.

I’m frustrated with Democrats continuing to be touchy feely, and playing “the right way” when Republicans keep stealing our lunch with no repercussions. Sure we may end up with a “Democratic wave”, but seriously, who gives a shit when a fresh hardline Republican Supreme Court Justice is going to serve for the next 30 years?

1975

What – and be exact here – would you prefer the Democrats to do regarding the Kavanaugh nomination?

What process are they not doing that they should be doing?

1976

This is why all the “norms and traditions” that kept things civilized need to become laws (at minimum). The problem is, how do you go back to the status quo ante without baking in the bullshit McConnell pulled with Garland to save the seat for Gorsuch? Only adding two more seats to the Court could balance it again.

1977

Basically you’re stuck between ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ and ‘you cant play chess with someone who hits you over the head with the board when it’s his turn.’ Not an easy situation to disentangle oneself from.

Maybe this is why republics, or any system based on mutual acceptance of binding rules that are something other than raw physical force, are tricky to sustain.

1978

The Republicans currently operate under the same mentality their voting base does, the rules are for everyone else. It’s time to stop playing by the rules. You can play dirty and still be legal about it. They think the Democrats are weak and just there to mop up when things are messy, but they’ve already raked in their fortunes by then and they plan do it again when things are stabilized.

1979

Right, so let’s add 4, next time there’s a Dem president and Congress. Need to get that chance, though…

1980

Again, if someone could tell me what that rulebreaking looks like?

1981

Ignoring precedent, and following the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law.

1982

OK. Aaaaaaaaand…?

1983

I’d say going ‘fuck it, pack the court’ is exactly the kind of thing we are talking about.

1984

But to Triggercut’s point, in order to pack the court, you have to be in charge… which the Dems are not.

I have this same conversation with my wife and some of my even more liberal friends. They are super-frustrated that the Democrats aren’t doing something - anything - to stop Trump and the GOP. I let them vent for a while, then ask them exactly what more they can be doing.

And there isn’t much. Honestly, the Democrats have only been able to thwart as much of Trump’s moronic agenda as they have due to his monstrous incompetence. Kavanough is another example of that incompetence and over-reaching, but there is only so much the minority party can do.

The way to do something about it is to vote on November 6. And to encourage/beg others to vote on November 6. Everything else is just a desperate rear-guard action.

1985

While I agree Democrats shouldn’t play nice, I also take the point that there’s not much they can do in this particular case that they aren’t. They’ve already dragged out the Kavanaugh hearing further than I thought (with a little help from random sexual assault allegation). They hold literally zero levers of power which is why in the end another far-right justice is probably a fait accompli.

It all comes back to the electorate – the buck stops there – with the asterisk that our system is not geared in certain ways for maximum electorate representation (see: Mandering, G., voter-suppression efforts, intrinsically non-democratic nature of Senate, etc.)

1986

All that stuff you mention, plus

  1. not mandating that, as long as we’re not doing nationwide vote-by-mail, election day be a holiday.
  2. relying on counties to come up with the resources to run every election EVAR.
1987

They can describe exactly what is happening and be accurate about it. This administration is going to ram through a proven liar, a man who very likely attempted to rape a 15 year old, and someone with additional questionable behaviors around women onto one of the most important courts in the land not despite of these flaws but because of them. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they couldn’t absolutely find a more ideal candidate with similar voting positions and no baggage to get the same results.

1988

I hope Leahy ask Kavanaugh if he is more sure, just as sure, or less sure about his Ford denial as he is about not knowing where those Democratic vetting documents came from during his time in the Bush administration.

1989

I mean they literally have a list of them.

Kavanaugh wasn’t even on the radar until recently.

1990

Seems like the Swift Boat guys helped Whelan light himself on fire.

1991

Now Washington Post is reporting that Ford discovered that Whelan was looking at her LinkedIn profile last Sunday morning before her name had been made public. This means someone gave Whelan her name before anyone supposedly knew her name. Of course it had to be someone familiar with the accusation or the circumstances under which it occurred. Kavanaugh.

1992

Was just coming to post that. I’m sure there is an innocent explanation. /s