What the SCOTUS Nomination Fight is Really About
- by Benjamin Weingarten
- 09-23-2020
- Original Publication can be found here: https://www.newsweek.com/what-scotus-nomination-fight-really-about-opinion-1533688
By Benjamin
Weingarten (published in Newsweek)
The coming
confirmation battle over the successor to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg is about more than future decades of decisions on issues from
abortion to the administrative state, or the weeks of litigation that
Democrats threaten to bring should the presidential election not go their way.
These are
vital matters. But this nomination fight, which on its face involves the
Republican Party faithfully exercising the authority the American people vested
in it in the face of an increasingly hysterical and violent opponent, is about more than any one nominee.
It concerns
the future of our political system itself—whether the GOP will push back
against a party increasingly dominated by leftists storming
the ramparts in naked pursuit of total power, or be content to serve
increasingly as controlled opposition.
Early indications are
that Republicans intend to prevail in a quarrel where by
all rights—law, precedent and the votes—there should be none.
It is
imperative that they are up to the task.
This
nomination represents an opportunity for the Republican Party to deliver a
decisive blow to a Democratic Party devoted to the complete destruction of its
political opponents; to demonstrate that it understands the stakes should
it concede
an inch of its rightful powers; and to prove it has the resolve to
confidently stand up to Democratic tactics.
It is an
opportunity to highlight for the American people what is on the line in 2020:
our freedom from a Democratic Party that has succumbed at the highest levels to
its revolutionary "woke" wing in rhetoric and policy.
By drawing a
bold contrast, Republicans will affirm that there is a party that stands for
liberty and justice in the face of the mob that cynical Democrats have used as
a stalking horse in hopes of seizing control.
They will
affirm that threats and
coercion will not be allowed to halt the expediting of the people's business.
Though the
coming confirmation fight transcends the Trump presidency, it implicates President
Trump in a big way.
Nothing has
better exposed the Democratic Party's true nature than its efforts, condoned by
leadership, to destroy Donald Trump as a warning to anyone who dares threaten
its power and privilege. If Republicans were to take one lesson from the
president, it should be this: Democrats will stop at nothing to achieve their
ambitions. They want to throw you off of the political battlefield. Fighting
back with even greater gusto is not just the proper response, it is the only
response if you wish to survive.
U.S.
president Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Toledo Express Airport in
Swanton, Ohio.MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY
Democrats
and their administrative state allies have run roughshod over the institutions,
norms and values they claim to defend. Before and during Trump's presidency,
they weaponized law enforcement and the national security apparatus against
him. They hamstrung him using every possible measure, from the Russiagate cloud
over his presidency to a "subpoena
cannon" and a Potemkin impeachment so illegitimate it has already been
memory-holed. The man they screamed was an "authoritarian" in effect
had less power than any of his modern predecessors thanks to the myriad
onslaughts against him. It is remarkable how much he actually achieved in the
face of such resistance. That "Resistance" never permitted the
peaceful transfer of power to President Trump, and now entertains fever
dreams of a military coup against him should he refuse to permit the
next transfer.
The purpose
of the anti-Trump resistance was not just to crush him and those in his orbit,
but to engage in what Attorney General William Barr described as
the "criminalization of politics" to chill opposition to their
designs on achieving total political power.
For those
establishment Republicans who shared Democrats' distaste for the president, the
confirmation battle over Justice Brett Kavanaugh should have removed all doubt
that the left-dominated party merely loathed President Trump.
Justice
Kavanaugh worked in the George W. Bush White House and had all of the right
credentials, yet Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including vice
presidential nominee Kamala Harris, tried to destroy him.
The message
was clear: Surrender or we will make your life a living hell.
Republicans
should now know that any individual perceived as a threat to Democratic power
will be subjected to the same kind of vitriol. No tactic will be too low.
Republicans,
like President Trump and those nominees who have followed his lead and never
given up in the face of intense pressure, must not surrender the next Supreme
Court nomination. Democrats above all seem to respect—or at least find
themselves challenged by—Republican strength.
Republicans
must summon the strength to stand up and fight for the American way of life against a political party all too
apt to engage in the politics of personal destruction, and to resort to ruthless,
extra-constitutional and sometimes outright illegal means in pursuit of its
ends.
Democrats
will continue to raise heckles about hypocrisy, screaming "But
Garland!" over the kind of nomination that their presidential nominee, their last president and other leaders in the recent
past approved.
They will
say a nominee cannot be pushed through in such a short period, or in an
election year—the clear record of such nominations to the contrary
notwithstanding.
They will
insist, consistent with Justice Ginsburg's reported dying wish, that a Democrat
fill the seat with a Democrat, in spite of the fact that no seat is owned by
any party, and Justice Ginsburg herself could have assured her seat landed in
safe hands by retiring earlier.
They will
claim it outrageous or unconstitutional for Republicans to do their job in one
breath, and pledge to pack
the Supreme Court and set the streets ablaze in the next. All this will
demonstrate is that their real concern is not the merits, but raw political
power.
The truth is
that Democrats wish to deny to their political opposition even rights and
responsibilities that pale in comparison to those they would take for
themselves. They are livid about the prospect of Republicans taking advantage
of an opportunity they would never pass up were they presented with it.
Why should
Republicans be held to a different standard, or operate any differently, and relinquish
their rightful powers?
They of
course should not—and it appears they will not—do so.
A hysterical
political party that, when it lost, refused to think through what it ought to
do to better appeal to voters next time; unleashed spies on the victors and
seeks to sabotage them at every turn; and threatens to burn the country down
should it lose again does not deserve the vote of any American.
This is what
is at stake in this confirmation battle, a microcosm of what is at stake in the
2020 election itself.