The notorious RBG replacement process

I’m going to step away from the Delaware election for an evening and let you know what I think about all this.

We knew it had to happen someday – after all, during the spring there were the rumors floating around that she had already died – but last Friday Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg set off to meet her Maker at the age of 87. There’s no question she lived a long life full of accomplishment, but the one thing she apparently failed at was her gamble that she would outlive the term of a Republican president. Thus, the sky fell in on the Left just in time for a glorious late-summer weekend.

I’m not even sure the body had assumed room temperature before the “Biden Rule” caterwauling began. “You can’t select a nominee before the election!” they sputtered. “It would violate Justice Ginsburg’s final wish!” Obviously this hearsay superseded her previous on-the-record statement that a president’s term is four years, not three years and nine months.

Even if not, however, the Constitution dictates that the President in office select a nominee, a person who is appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate. And this is where the comparisons to the 2016 replacement of the late Justice Antonin Scalia fall apart. For the Senate did give advice that year to President Obama – you can send anyone you want who shares your judicial temperament, but we will not consent. To turn a phrase, “we won.” Merrick Garland may have been a moderately left-wing judge compared to others nominated by Obama, but the Senate was not looking for moderate and they held the cards.

So now we have all sorts of vows from the Left should Trump nominate a conservative on his way out the door – they’ll be stacking the Supreme Court, adding the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as states, ending the filibuster and the Electoral College – and that’s just for starters. (And this doesn’t count the implied threat of more civil unrest Democrats have made.)

It’s that threat I want to address. Let’s say Kamala Harris wins the election. (And yes, I know Joe Biden is on the ballot but the over/under for his time in office with me is six months.) Knowing that President Trump and Mitch McConnell worked exceptionally hard over the last four years trying to overcome eight years of highly political Obama judicial appointees – with enough success that they got to select 1/3 of the Supreme Court and enough appellate judges to tip the balance in some districts to the conservative side – is it outside the realm of possibility that the organizers of the rioting may become leaders of assassination teams bent on picking off Trump appointees to open judicial seats that they believe our impeached but not convicted 45th President “stole?”

I don’t come to this conclusion lightly. In his column today, The Patriot Post‘s Mark Alexander quoted AOC, who said, “We all need to be more courageous and we all must act in unprecedented ways to make sure that our rights are stabilized. And to Mitch McConnell, we need to tell him that he is playing with fire.” To me, those “unprecedented ways” sound like a serious violent intent.

I am certain these judges already have extra protection, but an attack over the summer on the family of a federal judge pointed out the risks. And while the story writer bent over backwards to blame President Trump and “right-wing news” for these threats, it’s not right-wingers who are rioting, disrupting restaurant goers at dinner, or murdering Trump supporters. It’s not a long step to go from “defund the police” to “overturn the judicial system.”

And even if all elements of the RBG story remained the same except for the date being January 21, 2021 I believe the Left would have reacted the same way, screaming that RBG’s legacy was such that no conservative judge could follow her despite the fact Trump was re-elected with a GOP Senate majority still in place. The TDS is strong with these people and like spoiled children they don’t react well when they are told “no.” Add to that the lack of respect for life and you have the ingredients for what I’m describing.

You know, I really hate to think the worst of people but in my 56 years on this planet those suspicions have come to pass more than I would have liked. So I fervently pray I’m wrong but figure it’s an eventuality for which we may need to prepare.