Queequeg's Leash

I’ve also seen people arguing hypocrisy over McConnell wanting to go forward with the nominating process in a presidential election year after what happened with Merrick Garland in 2016. Again, this is silly. Look at the “Biden Rule” from 1992. He advocated waiting until after the election with a Republican president in office and a Democrat-controlled Senate. This is what the Republicans did in 2016. With a Democrat president in office and a Republican-controlled Senate, they would not approve anyone until after the election. In 2020 the “Biden Rule” does not apply. Republicans control both the presidency and the Senate. Trump absolutely has the right to nominate a judge, and the Senate can absolutely choose to appoint that judge. At least a few Republican senators are squishy and may make the whole thing a moot point anyway. Everybody chill.

Let’s say the leftist worst-case scenario happens, Trump appoints an Originalist justice. Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor are reliably leftist activist judges; Thomas and Alito are typically reliably right-leaning constitutionalists; Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are relatively apolitical and will vary in their votes; Roberts tends to vote with the activist left-leaning judges on big issues, but will vary. That leaves one hypothetical Originalist to join the Thomas and Alito crew. So what we’d have typically are 5-4 decisions (Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Mystery Person vs Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor, Roberts). Not too unlike what we have now. Also, I’m extremely skeptical that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would go against stare decisis on the beloved abortion issue. So, again, everybody chill.  History did not begin yesterday or 10 years ago or 100 years ago. America has survived far worse presidents and far worse justices than we have (or could soon have) right now.