Rachel Maddow points out that Democrats have a pretty simple way to block Trump's next Supreme Court nominee, if they can stick to a plan.
Said Maddow: If you look at this in the specific, we're actually on Day 1 of what's going to turn out to be a super fascinating fight. This is about to be exciting in the way that things are exciting when they are both important and you legitimately don't know how they're going to turn out. And this one has the additional excitement because this one might turn out in a way that has something to do with how hard you work on it.”
“Democrats are either doormats or they will insist at least on consistency,” she added, pointing out how Republicans blocked Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland. “They will insist that the Kennedy vacancy must be treated the same as the Scalia vacancy.”
Noting that with Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) having been replaced by Democrat Doug Jones, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) away from the Senate for health issues, the GOP needs total unanimity to get a SCOTUS nominee through.
Added Maddow: “What that means is that if Democrats hold together in one big ‘We're not doormats' caucus, the only thing they need to block President Trump from installing his chosen nominee is precisely one Republican vote….Is there one Republican in the U.S. Senate who might not want to be the deciding vote on whether abortion is illegal in this country?”
She continued: “So what happens next? What happens now is that as of today we embark as a nation on a four month sprint on everybody in the country having a stake in this… If Democrats are going to do this, every single Democrat in the Senate will need to agree to not be a doormat – that shouldn't be that hard! And every single Republican senator — including the pro-choice ones — will have to decide if they want to go down in history as the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion legal in the United States. And I know that seems nuts! But is it more nuts than what happened in freakin' Alabama being the thing that got Democrats to 49 seats? I mean, this is America! Weird stuff happens.”
Added Maddow: “If Democrats pull this off if they stand together and they fight this for the next four months and they win this, they will stop the Supreme Court nominee, they will save, among other things legal abortion in this country at least for the time being. They will prove themselves not to be doormats the Republicans expect them to be, right? And they give themselves a chance of winning back control of Congress in Washington, which will give them a thumbs up or thumbs down say in who the next nominee is. They've got four months to do it, starting today.”
“That's it, simple! No muss no fuss. Easy peasy, right?”
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