(02-16-2020 12:36 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Better than Trump getting re-elected with a Republican majority in the Senate IMO. You can say a lot of negative things about Obama, but the fact is he didn't have a chance to completely change the ideological make-up of the Supreme Court. So far, you can say the same about Trump but that will likely change if he gets re-elected with a Republican majority in the Senate. And then if you think there is chaos now in the country, wait until that happens.

If Obama had gotten to replace Scalia with Garland, he would have. So far, Trump has replaced conservatives with conservatives, so no major shift. If Trump gets to replace RBG, then a potential shift is very likely.

I have said for some time that I think it would have been useful if Trump could have worked out a deal with Schumer where he agreed to appoint Garland to RBG's seat when she quits or croaks, in exchange for the democrats agreeing that confirmation should be based on judicial qualifications and not not on the kind of reputation-smearing circus we saw with Kavanaugh. If democrats knew that for the Kavanaugh confirmation, they would get Garland for RBG if they behaved, and maybe Amy Coney Barrett if they didn't, I think they would have behaved a lot better, and we wouldn't have had any phony rape stories to get past. Plus, while Garland is no conservative, you put him in RBG's place and replacing a hard-core leftist with a center-leftist would the court more conservative overall. And if the deal stuck, then maybe we could be through with the Bork/Clarence Thomas/Kavanaugh tarring-and-feathering and false accusations. That's a trade I would make, but then again that depends on good faith on the part of the democrats, and history says that's not a good bet.