The Gorsuch problem.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

The issue with Gorsuch isn't that Democrats shouldn't vote to reject him. They should.

The issue with Gorsuch isn't that he is anything close to what we want to see as a Supreme Court justice. He isn't.

The issue with Gorsuch is that he's as pretty much the nameless conservative judicial pick picked by a nameless Republican president and sent to a nameless Republican controlled Senate for approval. He's everything we could and should have expected in this type of situation, no less and no more.

I have very little doubt that Donald Trump himself had little if anything to do in nominating Gorsuch. This was one task where I honestly believe he happily delegated off to someone else in the administration--maybe Mike Pence--to handle. The fact that he rarely brings up Gorsuch in his rambling talks or tweeting essentially confirms that this was something of an afterthought to him, that he had very little interest in the process and doesn't have any interest in making it a part of his story. His approach to the judiciary thus far is that he has very little respect for the process no matter who's sitting on the bench. His glaring admiration for Andrew Jackson could very well be based on the apocryphal quote regarding Native American removal, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"

The situation as it stands is that we will not see a Democratic majority in the Senate until January 2019 at the very earliest. And despite all the swirling potential for impeachment based on the very real and ever-growing Russia scandal, I still highly doubt we'll see a Democratic president until January 2021 at the earliest based on simple Chain of Succession matters. This is the unfortunate truth we're compelled to deal with.

Can Senate Democrats, as a minority party, hold out on getting a vote for a Supreme Court justice for four years? That's virtually impossible.

Can Senate Democrats, as a minority party, hold out on getting a vote for a Supreme Court justice for two years in the hopes they will have regained the majority after that and that the Republican president (Trump or Pence) will be forced to nominate a candidate who is at least more of a centrist than Gorsuch? That's still extremely, extremely unlikely. We have a lot of time to waste and not much political capital to use it on wasting that time.

We could somehow hope that Gorsuch is rejected, and that any new nominee ends up being if not the pleasant surprise that David Souter was, at least someone along the lines of Roberts who manages to occasionally surprise us every once in a while.

But as entrenched a conservative as Gorsuch is, he's not a boat rocker of a nominee that will cause long standing Republicans to question his confirmation. If Trump had taken an active role in selecting a nominee and chosen an off the wall grossly underqualified but splashy candidate like a Fox News personality (Jeanine Pirro, Andrew Napolitano), or even worse, some gross act of cronyism or nepotism (Justice Eric Trump, anyone?), it might be enough to rankle enough of the establishment Republicans to vote to reject. Or if he had nominated someone whose judicial history had some absolute stain on his record in terms of an infamous prior decision or personal behavior, that too could derail a nomination.

But Gorsuch is the average, predictable conservative Republican pick, neither better nor worse than what we could expect from a Republican president. But without a friendly Senate, that's not nearly enough, I'm afraid.

The fact that we should be seeing a Justice Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court but don't is a tragedy that bothers me every bit as much as the fact we should be seeing a President Hillary Clinton in the White House but don't. It was a gross injustice that Democrats should never let the American people forget. But I don't know if it's possible to draw that type of outrage out over several years space.

As a bottom line, Democrats should vote their conscience on Gorsuch. Yes, yes, yes, they should definitely vote their conscience on him, which means voting against him. But that's as much as we can expect at this point. Essentially right now Democrats are the Light Brigade preparing for their valiant but ultimately doomed charge.

Sorry for being such a downer. Believe me, I'd much rather be saying anything else right now.

[tblue37]

1. I think you meant vote their conscience on Gorsuch:

"As a bottom line, Democrats should vote their conscience on Garland. . . ."

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. Freudian slip.

Proof of my subconscious desire for a better yet impossible outcome.

Good catch. Editing.

[FSogol]

3. K & R. n/t

[2naSalit]

4. K&R

[DonCoquixote]

5. I understand where you come from, but

there are certain problems with this OP that need to be addressed. First off, let's run with this idea that Neil is inevitable. Let's make it a 2+2 making 4 fact, even in an age where they can make five depending on the media. If nothing else, this gives us a chance to do with the GOP is done to us: win wars by adding up a lot of small battles. Neil will probably get in yes, but the more we fight him now, the clearer his flaws will be once he goes ahead and makes one decision that reveals those flaws so well. Yes Neil looks harmless to most of the sheep who watch CNN, the The second a case even looks like it might overturn Roe V Wade, all those flaws shine in the media light, even as Fox tries to bury them. Then, then people remember they were wrong about him, just as they will remember Trump was wrong when he said they would replace Obama care something better, especially those red Wearing seniors who wonder why their insurance is five times more costly.

I am not denying at all that this situation is awful. That is why even those of us did not like Clinton knew we had to vote for her and get others to vote for her. However, part of the reason the GOP won is because (and OP writer I am not including you in this mess) there is a cottage industry selling a mellow, purposeless anger and a acceptance of defeat and despair. Yes this is awful, but we do win in the end, and the way we do is by looking at a situation in figuring out how much we can make the enemy pay for every victory, how do we turn this into the sort of victory they cannot afford any more? Rest assured, when victories become too costly, even Trump will get tired of "winning", half his party already is.