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DeadlyMuffin posted:You have a very strange definition of “proves”. Can you elaborate on what you mean here? It's pretty simple, McConnell has amassed an unprecedented amount of power for his party compared to their electoral results by breaking every norm and taking advantage of the good faith liberals offer him every chance he gets, because he knows there's no consequences. That your first reflex is to give him the benefit of the doubt again and choose to believe that he would breach decorum for 100 days but he would never breach decorum for 200 days (or however long you think the maximum is before he goes "okay I was just fooling, you can have a judge now"), is exactly why he knows he can get away with it. Not because you or I matter but because our political leadership all think pretty much the same way as you, they just need to be nice to their friend McConnell and decorum will be back again. Remember when Biden said the Trump fever will break after he's out, and Republicans will reach across the aisle again because surely they wouldn't just obstruct for 4 years for partisan gain. How did that go. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 04:33
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AtomikKrab posted:Given how the electorate reacted to all the election fraud stuff, deliberately holding off on supreme court justices if Hillary had won would have resulted in the Republican party getting absolutely walloped in 2018. Offering Republicans an opportunity to gently caress over Hilary's presidency, court, and legacy would get out their vote harder than anything in my lifetime. Especially if they see this as righting a rigged election.
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Nov 28, 2022 04:47
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AtomikKrab posted:Given how the electorate reacted to all the election fraud stuff, deliberately holding off on supreme court justices if Hillary had won would have resulted in the Republican party getting absolutely walloped in 2018. The American public on the whole has an idea of how the system overall is supposed to work, squatting on a supreme court appointment after losing the presidential election would have been a massive anchor in the publics eyes That's what we were told in 2016. If McConnell obstructs Garland, a sensible centrist pick that republicans suggested in the first place, they'll get walloped in November and Dems will win it all. Didn't work out that way though...
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Nov 28, 2022 05:10
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If we're talking theoretical timelines, if Hillary won and McConnell still refused at that point Hillary would logically just appoint a justice anyway because then they'd have a majority on the Supreme Court and say "The Senate only has a right to review, and they declined that right so I get to appoint"
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Nov 28, 2022 05:53
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couldn’t Obama have done that?
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Nov 28, 2022 06:01
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Automata 10 Pack posted:couldn’t Obama have done that? Obama was confident Clinton would win and was okay with it being her problem and concerned for his legacy as an even tempered statesman
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Nov 28, 2022 06:03
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HashtagGirlboss posted:Obama was confident Clinton would win and was okay with it being her problem and concerned for his legacy as an even tempered statesman Also Hillary for all her many faults hated the Republicans more then basically any other Democrat ever and would not take as much poo poo for them as Obama did.
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Nov 28, 2022 06:05
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Evil Fluffy posted:Republican senators were openly talking about leaving Scalia’s seat vacant for four years if Hilary won. They’d have left it vacant the entire time because McConnell already did so to Obama and the gop suffered nothing as a result. McConnell did not hold a supreme court seat open through one of Obama's terms. He used an upcoming election as an excuse to hold open a spot for about a year. What Republican senators were talking about keeping the seat open four years?
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Nov 28, 2022 06:16
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VitalSigns posted:It's pretty simple, McConnell has amassed an unprecedented amount of power for his party compared to their electoral results by breaking every norm and taking advantage of the good faith liberals offer him every chance he gets, because he knows there's no consequences. There's no proof here. This is just you calling me a liberal. That's not something I would self identify as, and is obviously meant as an insult or a put-down, but whatever. I said what I did because I know people who bought the "there's an upcoming election" argument. That fig leaf doesn't hold up if the seat is open going into the president's term. McConnell would've had to find some other excuse, and I think he'd have had a harder time doing it.
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Nov 28, 2022 06:21
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DeadlyMuffin posted:What Republican senators were talking about keeping the seat open four years? Leaving the seat vacant as long as they could was not a fringe GOP position at the time
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Nov 28, 2022 06:49
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DeadlyMuffin posted:There's no proof here. This is just you calling me a liberal. That's not something I would self identify as, and is obviously meant as an insult or a put-down, but whatever. DeadlyMuffin posted:I said what I did because I know people who bought the "there's an upcoming election" argument. That fig leaf doesn't hold up if the seat is open going into the president's term. McConnell would've had to find some other excuse, and I think he'd have had a harder time doing it. He can always come up with some pablum for MSNBC to solemnly repeat to your friends "the American people may have rejected Trump but they also elected a Republican senate to be a check on Hillary pushing a liberal agenda through the courts" or somesuch. Consistency doesn't matter to him, you want to think it does, which is understandable. But it doesn't I'm sorry to say. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 07:07
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Foxfire_ posted:John McCain vows to block any Hilary Clinton Supreme Court nominee Even as they came up with the pablum about letting the election decide, they were going back to their own base saying "lol don't worry we're lying, win or lose we won't give the Democrats a judge", knowing full well that the people who wanted to believe in McConnell's sincere intentions would would memoryhole it instantly if they even heard about it.
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Nov 28, 2022 07:48
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VitalSigns posted:There was no put down. You asked for an explanation of the argument and you got it. No, I asked how you could possibly *prove* something in a what-if scenario, since that's what you said here: VitalSigns posted:Just the fact that you reacted to him stealing a Supreme Court seat with "well maybe he would have still let Hillary have it" proves he wouldn't. You should be a lot more careful with your language.
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Nov 28, 2022 09:39
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All I know is that using time travel to kill Hitler only results in Mechahitler.
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Nov 28, 2022 11:02
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DeadlyMuffin posted:McConnell did not hold a supreme court seat open through one of Obama's terms. He used an upcoming election as an excuse to hold open a spot for about a year. Hey, I often push back against the doom bias on this board, but in this case the only thing that really matters is the Majority Leader. If Garland had come up for a vote, we pretty much know he would have been confirmed, which is why he never came up for a vote. Theoretically a majority of the Senate could file a discharge petition (or whatever is the Senate parliamentary equivalent of forcing a vote against the leader's wishes), but realistically that is not ever going to happen because if you sign a discharge petition against your own majority leader (or your speaker in the house) then that is you signing away your political future unless there is some kind of hilariously huge split within your own party or something. So what likely would have happened is maybe a few Republicans might have made a few unhappy noises about how maybe its bad to refuse to let Hillary fill any seats at all for four years, but if the turtle folds his arms and stubbornly says no, then that is that. Rigel fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 11:43
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DeadlyMuffin posted:No, I asked how you could possibly *prove* something in a what-if scenario, since that's what you said here: If none of that is good enough for you, fine, but if you're just going to reject all counterarguments out of hand because they're about a speculative situation then I don't know why you bothered making an assertion about what would have happened in an alternate history the first place. All of the individual reasons you gave for giving McConnell the benefit of the doubt have been proven wrong, if you want to keep believing he'll do the nice thing eventually anyway that's your right. To me that's just more proof he'd do it because exploiting the good faith democrats keep offering to him is exactly how he keeps getting away with breaking norms to get what he wants and our political leadership obviously agrees with you not me VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 14:23
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McConnell will surely not pull away the football this time!
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Nov 28, 2022 15:10
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Reality is already a big enough let down without inventing additional legal battles that operate against the interests of the general public. Do we really need to examine imagined violations as well? Everyone itt acknowledging that Mitch McConnell is a piece of poo poo won't being him any closer to payong any consequences for his actions so it's all pretty pointless
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Nov 28, 2022 16:06
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Nothing we discuss in this thread will change anything, all discussions are pointless for anything beyond clarifying our own understanding for ourselves.
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Nov 28, 2022 17:02
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so it's like when certain folks go on a "vision quest," except instead of psychedelics some folks are just wallowing in unmitigated anxiety and calling it clairvoyance?
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Nov 28, 2022 17:09
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FAUXTON posted:so it's like when certain folks go on a "vision quest," except instead of psychedelics some folks are just wallowing in unmitigated anxiety and calling it clairvoyance? No. There are purposes to understanding the motives and strategies of the opposition besides "wallowing in unmitigated anxiety". As we saw in 2016 when Obama responded to McConnell going low and obstructing the court appointment by going high and nominating Orrin Hatch's pick in the hope that the shame of refusing a sensible compromise would move him. This strategy was a failure, it's good to understand why imo. If you aren't interested fine, I don't see how making GBS threads on people who are is helpful.
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Nov 28, 2022 17:16
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VitalSigns posted:No. it doesn't take these sun tzu shitposts to infer old white guys love power and guard it jealously (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 28, 2022 17:22
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FAUXTON posted:it doesn't take these sun tzu shitposts to infer old white guys love power and guard it jealously There are people who fail to do this, however, and as such there is discussion and debate within the Debate and Discussion forum's SCOTUS thread about how, despite the opposition's desires for fair play and/or decorum, the old white guy Mitch McConnell loves power and guards it jealously.
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Nov 28, 2022 17:28
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Gerund posted:There are people who fail to do this, however, and as such there is discussion and debate within the Debate and Discussion forum's SCOTUS thread about how, despite the opposition's desires for fair play and/or decorum, the old white guy Mitch McConnell loves power and guards it jealously. Not really. Nobody disagrees Mitch McConnell loves power and guards it jealously, nobody disagrees the "McConnell rule" is transparent bullshit. We disagree on how much he might have been able to get away with in an alternate history. It is literally unprovable. Also on what the word "proves" means.
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Nov 28, 2022 17:32
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Not really. Nobody disagrees Mitch McConnell loves power and guards it jealously, nobody disagrees the "McConnell rule" is transparent bullshit. DeadlyMuffin posted:
Unless by "harder time" you meant he could manage with some more effort, but then you're just agreeing with me that he'd find another excuse to obstruct VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 17:43
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I think the real takeaway is that it's a counterfactual and trying to divine what would have taken place is no more realistic than predicting the actual future, a process whose difficulty ranges from "pretty tough" to "actually impossible". If McConnell had attempted to block a nomination with a new administration there would have undoubtedly been some type of showdown, the particulars of which would be based entirely on who staffed that new administration. That showdown would in turn have various unknowable factors that would determine it's effectiveness and any political or social price that would have to be extracted in order to end the obstruction. There are so many massive variables involved, including the health conditions of a bunch of geriatric political leaders, that drawing any conclusion is about as effective as reading tea leaves. Grip it and rip it fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 17:47
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I would think the burden of showing that he would act differently falls to you, DM, since it's impossible to disprove your random counterfactuals. Is there any past parallel behavior of his you can point to that shows he has shame or Kentuckians give a gently caress?
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Nov 28, 2022 17:49
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VitalSigns posted:Uh didn't you just argue that because the McConnell rule only applies to an election year he'd have to confirm a Democratic pick in any other year? No. I argued in the hypothetical situation where Clinton won he would not have held an opening for 4 years. I argued this, as I said earlier, because I saw people buy into his "the election is too soon" nonsense, but think it would have been more difficult for him to sustain it through an entire presidential term without that fig leaf. VitalSigns posted:Unless by "harder time" you meant he could manage with some more effort, but then you're just agreeing with me that he'd find another excuse to obstruct It would have been possible, but it is not how I think it would have played out.
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Nov 28, 2022 18:02
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DeadlyMuffin posted:t would have been possible, but it is not how I think it would have played out. Based on what? You keep just handwaving the part where you allegedly applied reasoning
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Nov 28, 2022 18:03
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I argued in the hypothetical situation where Clinton won he would not have held an opening for 4 years. I argued this, as I said earlier, because I saw people buy into his "the election is too soon" nonsense, but think it would have been more difficult for him to sustain it through an entire presidential term without that fig leaf. There are three factors that I believe all weigh extremely heavily against you, and I'm going to compare this to another situation where those factors would (and has many times before) weigh the other way: the debt ceiling. 1) Advancing overall party goals, 2) Blame, 3) the level of "give a drat" amongst the voters. Every so often the GOP takes the country hostage and threatens to destroy the bond market and the overall economy to try to get their way. The GOP has backed down and caved every time, they will back down and cave next year, and they will always back down and cave in the future. This is because 1) Killing the economy is not actually a goal, its just them trying to play the part of crazy person who must be appeased, 2) the people have been able to correctly place the blame on this issue every time and there's no reason to think they won't in the future, and 3) the "give a drat" factor amongst the voters is very, very high. The polls have always shifted dramatically and quickly against the GOP, spooking them into giving up. On this situation with McConnell hypothetically threatening to hold up a nomination of a judge for 4 years, 1) probably the most important factor, this isn't just advancing the overall party goals, it is super-critical to the GOP's goals. In many cases its the whole ball game and the GOP should be willing to fight to the very bitter end to the death for this, 2) the blame factor is mixed at best, the people have often gone to both-sides-ism on this, and 3) maddeningly, the people's "give a drat" on judicial confirmations is very, very low. Which is stupid because they clearly cared about abortion getting restricted a hell of a lot, but the voters collectively seem to be stupid and apathetic about judicial confirmations, so the GOP isn't paying a political price.
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Nov 28, 2022 18:24
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DeadlyMuffin posted:No. Why would your friends buying into his "election is too soon" nonsense affect his behavior? Did your friends' faith stop him from ramming Barrett through even closer to an election?
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Nov 28, 2022 18:25
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Harold Fjord posted:Based on what? I gave my reasoning a couple of times earlier. You don't have to agree with it. It's based on conversations I had with more conservative family members. It's an opinion and a counterfactual so  it can't be proven one way or another.Here you go: DeadlyMuffin posted:I argued this, as I said earlier, because I saw people buy into his "the election is too soon" nonsense, but think it would have been more difficult for him to sustain it through an entire presidential term without that fig leaf. DeadlyMuffin posted:I said what I did because I know people who bought the "there's an upcoming election" argument. That fig leaf doesn't hold up if the seat is open going into the president's term. McConnell would've had to find some other excuse, and I think he'd have had a harder time doing it. I also said it was possible (emphasis added) DeadlyMuffin posted:There's a big difference between using an "upcoming" election as an excuse to keep an opening vacant, and holding that opening through a president's entire turn. *Both are possible*, but I don't think "There is no reason to assume McConnell wouldn't have left those seats vacant the entire time" is reasonable. DeadlyMuffin fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 18:46
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FAUXTON posted:it doesn't take these sun tzu shitposts to infer old white guys love power and guard it jealously There are literally people in this thread within the last page or two who don't get it. DeadlyMuffin posted:No. If Clinton was POTUS there is nothing that would get McConnell primaried, successfully, faster than allowing Hillary Clinton to put someone on the SCOTUS. Who's going to force him to hold a vote? Any Republican who tries to do so would experience political death (and possibly actual death via a crazy right-winger killing them for being a Clinton RINO or whatever) and the Dem minority would have zero power. The economy under Clinton would've suffered because the GOP would've been actively sabotaging everything and 2018 would've been a bloodbath for Dems instead of the GOP. The only people who thought "the election is too soon" was the actual reason were idiots. McConnell was hard blocking Obama as long as he was in power and everyone knew he would continue to do so to Clinton just as it was expected that he'd spend the next 2 years blocking all Biden nominees if the GOP had retaken the Senate. The only people who could've forced McConnell to not block a Clinton nominee for 4 years are the people who also would not want Clinton to get to fill the vacancy because they'd want to stick some Federalist Society shithead in there who will continue the country's deathmarch to permanent minority control by Republicans. McConnell only say the "election year" poo poo because he made for a better soundbyte for said idiots than just openly stating "I'm not giving him a vote because gently caress Obama, I'm keeping it open because there's nothing you can do about it and if we win we're stealing the seat for ourselves." And then to drive home the point, we got the handmaiden to fill RBG's seat when she died of hubris.
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Nov 28, 2022 19:57
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Hey DM just out of personal curiosity how did these credulous friends you speak of react to the Barrett confirmation? Did they figure out McConnell had been lying the whole time or did they just swallow the new fig leaf he came up with to justify that: "🐢Well akshually you only wait for the next election if the senate and president are different parties, if they are the same party it means the American people want appointments to happen in a presidential election year🐢"
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Nov 28, 2022 20:31
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VitalSigns posted:Hey DM just out of personal curiosity how did these credulous friends you speak of react to the Barrett confirmation? Did they figure out McConnell had been lying the whole time or did they just swallow the new fig leaf he came up with to justify that: "🐢Well akshually you only wait for the next election if the senate and president are different parties, if they are the same party it means the American people want appointments to happen in a presidential election year🐢" Please don't be a jerk about my family. The uncle I had an in depth conversation with about holding the spot open left the Republican party after 50+ years after January 6th. So yes, he figured out it was bullshit. That experience is part of why I have no real tolerance for the "January 6th was no big deal" argument from some on the left. Anecdotally (since you asked) a few of my more conservative family members have even started to vote D. I had someone who used to participate in his local Republican party tell me he voted D for the first time ever this year.
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Nov 28, 2022 21:40
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DeadlyMuffin posted:Please don't be a jerk about my family. I meant no offense, I was genuinely curious what their reaction was because I don't actually know anybody who truly believed the "too close to an election year" thing. I only know some right wingers who claimed to believe it at the time but their response to Barrett was "lmao owned say goodbye to abortion, libs" so I'm pretty sure they were just lying all along. I also know some  Republicans who have since become Democrats but they were critical of the refusal to give Garland an up or down vote at the time.E: although from your post it sounds like it wasn't the McConnell Rule hypocrisy that drove them away it was other stuff like 1/6 etc. The whole genius of McConnell's strategy is that he wasn't loud or rude, he just quietly and politely obstructed in legal but bad faith ways that didn't shock anyone like 1/6 VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Nov 28, 2022 |
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Nov 28, 2022 22:10
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VitalSigns posted:I meant no offense, I was genuinely curious what their reaction was because I don't actually know anybody who truly believed the "too close to an election year" thing. We are seeing this bear out in elections with Republican voters turning out for Democrats in a way that seemed fanciful only a few years ago.
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Nov 29, 2022 04:13
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If we make fun of them in Latin, surely then… https://twitter.com/stevenmazie/status/1597603510501130240?s=46&t=fezQJVNbxcgE9Bx9kPQvng
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Nov 29, 2022 15:54
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Calvin ball https://mobile.twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1598406453131444256
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Dec 2, 2022 00:55
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I think we’re well past the point where they care about doing things the ‘right way’ anymore
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