Democrats Have Handed Us a Republican Supreme Court in the Name of Identity Politics

Update: Sen Cory Booker (D) refuses to commit to add seats to Supreme Court on Face the Nation. Democrats are already retreating.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have resigned in 2013.

But the identity-politics crowd convinced her she was a historical figure, a rock star difficult to replace, and who are we, mere mortals, to speak on culture-war royalty? 

As Shant Mesrobian writes this weekend: "Liberals scolding people for years about pressure on RBG to retire and casting her obstinacy as a sign of female empowerment is exactly what I mean when I say liberal elites prioritize the proliferation of culture war narratives over achieving political outcomes."

Liberals scolding people for years about pressure on RBG to retire and casting her obstinacy as a sign of female empowerment is exactly what I mean when I say liberal elites prioritize the proliferation of culture war narratives over achieving political outcomes.

— Shant Mesrobian (@ShantMM) September 19, 2020

That was one hell of a gamble by the identity-polities warriors. We the people lost.

An even worse losing gamble was rigging the 2016 Democratic Primary for Hillary Clinton for the glory of the first woman president.

Clinton was and remains a historically unpopular figure who clearly was a weak candidate in 2016.

But who are we to question the Democratic National Committee and the identify-politics crowd?

Thank you for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton.

Illustrations of identity-politics failures abound.

Now, we likely will have six hyper-activist rightwingers on the United States Supreme Court.

Will Senate Democrats fight?

I have my doubts. The Democratic Party remains the Clinton-Obama party.

The only choice the Democrats have is to shut down the U.S. Senate throwing the country into a deeper depression than we were heading; and Trump will posture that he wants an expanded stimulus greater than the lame Nancy Pelosi stimulus bill passed in the House.

Holding the country for hostage is the future: Give us another justice, or we kill the economy. 

This is the position we are in because the Democratic Party has hollowed out working families, and refuse to consider fighting because Clinton, Pelosi and Schumer say it's too expansive.

In 2021, Democrats will not fight for an expanded Court to off-set Republican usurpation. Fighting for the right thing, for us, is not what Democrats do. Joe Biden has never fought for us, and he sure will not start now.

Anybody who has watched Democrats for even one week let alone for years knows that there is exactly zero chance they would court-pack or do anything else meaningful in retaliation for the GOP replacing Ginsburg. It's 👏an 👏empty👏 threat issued for re-tweets and posturing. 👏 https://t.co/rsAq6fZ5Fc

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 19, 2020

The next several months are going to be witness to the most extreme examples of political and policy incompetence eclipsing anything in modern American history.