With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Republicans already moving to fill the seat prior to the election, the hot takes from the left have been flowing. We’ve seen threats, from burning down cities to packing the court, thrown around by media members and Democrat politicians alike.
But never to be outdone, MSNBC’s Joy Reid took the cake this evening with her idea on what Democrats should do to stop Mitch McConnell from moving forward.
Some advice Dems are getting: “if Biden wins, he, as President-elect, should name his own nominee,” creating a scenario with two dueling nominees … and Democratic Senators “should decline to attend any courtesy calls or hearings for any Trump nominee.” https://t.co/L55MLPrJ1i
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) September 19, 2020
Wait, what? Who is so ill-informed and vapid so as to be giving such advice? That’s probably a question Reid should answer since she’s claiming to have heard this from sources.
This is going to blow some minds over at the resident liberal news networks, but “president-elect” is not a government position. In fact, such a person holds no power whatsoever in regards to our republic until they are inaugurated at the end of January. The only thing a president-elect can do is whatever the current president allows them to do within the context of the peaceful transition. What said president-elect certainly can’t do is nominate their own pick for the Supreme Court before they even assume the office.
Even if I want to be kind and assume that Reid is not speaking in legal absolutes, i.e. she just wants Biden to “name” someone as a propaganda tool for the media to use, this idea still makes no sense. Democrats refusing to attend any calls or hearings involving Trump’s nominee would probably make McConnell the happiest man in Washington. The last thing he wants to do is deal with more of the smears and ridiculous grandstanding that occurred during the Kavanaugh hearings. Any Democrat who takes their ball and goes home is doing Republicans a favor.
But for some reason, this kind of analysis passes as both objective and smart over at MSNBC. They are the ones who promoted a rabid conspiracy theorist and generally insane person to a prime-time slot where she now presents herself as a journalist. Perhaps they should have thought this through more? Is this really the type of junk they want headlining their network? The answer is probably yes, actually.
Joe Biden is not nominating a Supreme Court Justice as president-elect. Democrats are not going to skip the hearings on Trump’s nominee because it’s their only time to preen for the cameras. There’s quite literally nothing about Reid’s hot take that makes any sense. That’s par for the course I suppose.
(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)
