Much to the relief of many Democrats, 83 year old Justice Stephen Breyer has announced his retirement at the end of the current term. While some folks are trying to put an excessive spin on this, such as Erick Erickson’s interpreting this to mean the Democrats are in big trouble – and not that he’s an old man who’s decided it’s time to move on – I am wondering how the Republicans plan to react to this.
I mean, the Democratic reactions to Kavanaugh and Barrett were fairly hot, even chaotic. Will the Republicans do the same?
In a word, they shouldn’t. I’m not saying they won’t, as a lot of conservative wannabe leaders will see this as a chance to stir up trouble and look like, if only in their minds, leaders. But if the Republican leadership is smart – yeah, I shook my head, too – they’ll keep everyone calm.
Why? Because it’ll impress the independents that the Republicans are the grownups in the room. It won’t be true, of course, as Senators McConnell (R-KY) and Grassley (R-IA) have been dribbling lies about when nominees can be confirmed for years now. But most independent voters won’t be aware of that, while the near-riots and protests and the drama during the confirmation hearings of Kavanaugh and Barrett were loud and, frankly, embarrassing.
The Democrats and the left like to think they’re the adults in the room, and, given the quality of the conservatives these days, they have a point. But their public behaviors have not proven the point; in many independents’ eyes, they’ve been reprehensible. This is where the left falls down: they think everybody’s political.
They’re not. Back in my youth, most everyone wanted to work and then go to bowling league. These days, I’m not sure about the bowling, but having a political discussion hasn’t replaced bowling. A lot of people don’t pay attention to politics, so it’s only the loudest things they remember when they’re forced to think about it – and the Democrats have been both loud and frantic.
If the Republicans are smart, they’ll play that up, because they can’t stop a nominee from being confirmed through brute force. They might stop it by raising valid points about the nominee, if the Democrats are still taking their role in government seriously, but otherwise this is only an opportunity to patch up a Party reputation that has taken some serious damage over the last twenty-five and more years, as they’ve showcased a whole lot of substandard politicians, such as Gingrich, Trump, McConnell, Grassley, Gaetz, Palin, oh this list gets too long so I’ll stop right here.
It’ll be interesting to see how this goes.
