Is It Payback Time For Blocking Merrick Garland?

Yin Bogu/Xinhua via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Lots of Democrats want to take a scorched-earth approach toward the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. I’m totally on board with this. The Republican blockade of Merrick Garland was flat-out theft, and no party with any self-respect can let that go without a fight.

Still, I’m curious: how is this supposed to play out? If Democrats filibuster Gorsuch, then either Mitch McConnell kills the filibuster or he doesn’t. If he allows the filibuster to stand and Gorsuch is defeated, Trump will nominate another conservative. And no matter how much McConnell is dedicated to Senate institutions, the second time around he’d kill the filibuster for sure. He’s not going to allow Dems to filibuster Supreme Court nominees for four years, after all.

Substantively, then, it doesn’t matter much. We’re getting a conservative Supreme Court justice one way or another. But Jonathan Chait says a filibuster is important because Dems have to make McConnell own the brave new world he’s created. Richard Yeselson agrees:

I’m fine with this. But why is forcing McConnell to kill the filibuster a win for Democrats? Personally, I think they should block Gorsuch just to show they have a spine. I just don’t understand why anyone cares whether McConnell is forced to get rid of the filibuster.

POSTSCRIPT: When I first heard that Gorsuch was on Trump’s short list a couple of days ago, I thought: I know it’s just a coincidence, but I’d sure want to avoid anyone named Gorsuch. But no. It turns out it wasn’t a coincidence at all: Gorsuch is indeed the son of infamous Reagan EPA director Anne Gorsuch Burford. Enough with the dynasties!

ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: Anne Gorsuch Burford did her best to tear down the EPA, and perhaps her biggest blunder was her determination to scrap the rules for phasing out lead in gasoline. Thank God she failed.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate