comment: >
  
  No irony in the “He won, is your Prez… Get over it” mantra of 2016
context: Because there's no reason to think they're impartial. It'd be impossible to make that argument given the changes made and the politics involved in appointing them. >
  
  And basically there's an odd number of them, so in normal circumstances there's always going to be a bias towards the majority party affiliation. Even if you argue that they can be partial themselves, the selection process via President and then Senate confirmations all but ensures a highly partisan nature just to get past that screening. >
  
  It also doesn't help they dropped the requirement for confirmations to a simple majority of 51, down from 2/3s majority. Sure it doesn't help if 2/3 of the Senate is represented by a single party, but in today's world it would be a much more moderating requirement as the candidates would have to appeal to both parties to get confirmed. >
  
  You can thank Mitch McConnell for that change.  He oversaw the filibustering of practically any judge that Obama wanted to appoint, to the point that they had to reduce the threshold to 51 to confirm judges in order to get any through.
  While the filibuster for SCOTUS appointments specifically wasn't abolished until after Obama's presidency (to get Gorsuch on, after the outrageous holding-open of a seat for an entire year), had the Dems had 51 senators when Scalia dies you can guarantee the filibuster would have been abolished then too.
  Supermajorities only work if the political environment pressures the minority to be reasonable, otherwise they can just hold everyone hostage. >
  
  should've just ripped the bandaid off at that point, the court wouldn't be skewed right now >
  
  The GOP had the senate majority when Scalia died, so Obama's nominee couldnt even get a vote regardless of the filibuster. >
  
  So at that point, you say that since the Senate hasn't even held hearings on the nominee that they are providing tacit assent to the nominee and seat them anyways. If the Senate doesn't like it, they can hold hearings to actually vet the nominee and vote on whether they approve or not. You don't let them hold the entire process hostage and undermine our democracy. >
  
  Then that claim is challenged, and the Supreme Court rules on it. The appointee voting on their own appointment obviously isn’t appropriate, so it’s an 8-person court. How do you think that would play out? >
  
  No idea, would love to actually have seen it played out tho. Like, at least try to prevent the GOP from ruining everything. >
  
  I agree. At some point someone’s going to call their bluff, and things are going to get very messy. 
  I’d much rather watch that happen in the Supreme Court than on the streets. >
  
  They're not wrong. >
  
  Yup.   Just a bunch of religious fanatics and shills for billionaires >
  
  Pretty much... >
  
  "The American People Are Aware of Reality In This One Specific Instance"
  I guess that's newsworthy. I still have neighbors with trump signs.