Salvatore Ambrosino
President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett could cement minority rule within the next generation of congressional drama.
On Sept. 18, came the passing of legendary Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bater Ginsburg. Not even 24-hours following, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell suggests levying a vote for her immediate replacement.
In light of all infamy conjured by the political elite this election season, leveling a senate vote in the face of national mourning should be debilitatingly unsurprising and all too American of modern congressional procedure. The vote, above all things objective, was cold and unpopular hanging above an America grieving the death of a stellar American.
There’s something so normal about national injury that when we hear and feel the echo of more than 200,000 coronavirus deaths; the gassing of our own people; Trump’s decade of total tax avoidance; it gets pretty quiet directly South of Lafayette Square- except for when moments of silence may actually be appropriate.
McConnell’s call to vote gave rise to many claims of conservative hypocrisy calling back to President Obama’s 2016 nominee Merrick Garland. Senate Republicans shot down the nomination for the reason of it being an election year- although 200 days removed from the election. Tearing a rift in the congressional arena, McConnell’s scheme cements minority rule and campus drama for the next generation just 46 days from the 2020 presidential election.
Although the average nomination-to-inauguration timeline spans over 3 months, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, came September 26.
“Is there hypocrisy? Totally. I mean, I don’t think there’s a question,” Florida Southern’s JD accredited professor Dr. Louis Di Leo said, “but on some level you have to give [Senate] Republicans credit- not in a moral way, but for seeing the game and playing it well.”
Justice Ginsburg’s death will prove to be insidiously in favor of the GOP struggling to back their man, although doubling down on his candidacy. The reality of their presidential claim is hellish: the electoral college and popular vote are bound to be contested over accuracy concerns.
The obscure nature of the 2020 election and record-breaking accounts of mail-in ballots has inspired conspiracy and criticism from even the President. Disguising a teammate as a justice on the SCOTUS before November may arm Trump’s minority with the firepower needed to stand in an uphill Court battle for presidency.
Back in the election of 2000, the Supreme Court put an end to Bush v. Gore, awarding Florida’s votes to Bush and, in turn, the presidency. The Highest Court may be in session through the last two months of 2020, as the counting is expected to take longer than ever.
It comes down to how close it is: come a Biden blowout, for good or worse, a presidential dispute is unlikely. Come the doomsday of an indecipherable election, there will unquestionably be a decided president, although the dispute may well extend into an extracurricular contest to decide official presidency. This would be a slow, intimidating commitment by the Court justices and a geriatriatric slugfest by politicians bordering civil war.
As the President continually defers committing his administration to a peaceful transition of power come his election night ousting, Court supremacy fits right into his power agenda. Trump’s second term, even if facing certain death, may resurrect itself through trial and retrial again- even if his votes are truly representative of the national minority.
The Supreme Court minority, despite an honest commitment, by itself, would offer little resistance to a disputed reelection. Although it depends on the unknown circumstances in which the election lends itself to sudden death, we could see an ideological shift on the Court come from a presidential decision.
“The question comes down on Chief Justice John Roberts, and Niel Gorsuch,” Di Leo said. “I know they’re conservative, but like Ginsburg herself, they are deeply concerned about the integrity of the Court. Once the Court becomes a political operation, who’s going to respect it?”
Trump’s Court is nearly unblockable. But if Chief Justice John Roberts and others on the Court want to preserve the validity of their office, a stand needs to be taken at the heart of American opinion and precedent.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg lying in repose, the vacancy she left on the Court has been filled by an overreaching partisanship which may cripple the Court’s credibility for the next generation.
The dubious circumstances of a presidential election; the GOP minority cabal clinging to its powerhouse incumbent in Donald Trump; the deligitamizing of Our Nation’s democracy by its own President; it is all part of an unfamiliar time in American history.
“I don’t think so, no,” President Donald Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” March 16, 2016, in reference to Obama’s imminent Merrick Garland nomination. “I think they should do what they’re doing. I think the Republicans should do exactly what they’re doing. I think they should wait until the next president and let the next president pick. I would do that.”
