Will Dems be able to get 41 Dem Senators to vote against Supreme Ct Nom?

[The_Doctor]

The end result is the filibuster is going to be killed for legislation and judicial nomination, obviously. At some point, the senate is going to become a far more majoritarian institution.

The filibuster, by the way, is probably the only thing stopping the next Democratic President from passing a quite progressive agenda, so the Democrats should kill the filibuster. 51 Democrats and an increasingly liberal House Democratic majority can pass quite a lot in 2025.

(And liberal legislation, people, is far harder to kill than conservative legislation).

[The_Doctor]

I don't think the Court is going to remain conservative if the country doesn't remain conservative. Precisely because the country has been fairly center-right, the Court has felt the liberty to go towards the conservative direction. So, waving Justice Ted Cruz at the liberals isn't going to scare them, if the country continues moving towards the left. Your premise that the Court remains conservative is predicated on the premise that the nation remains conservative as a whole.

Examples abound. Gay marriage becoming popular forced the Court to renounce Bowers v. Hardwick and earlier rulings upholding a gay marriage ban. Roberts avoided embroiling the Court over ObamaCare by finding a unique legal doctrine to uphold the law. Famously, the archconservative Court in the 1930s swung to the New Deal to avoid losing legitimacy.

What makes you think the Court of 2025 will say, overturn gay rights? Or if there is a populist movement against Citizens United, embodied by say, a large Democratic victory in 2024, why wouldn't the Court emulate public opinion?

Both sides keep looking to replace justices...instead of courting public opinion, which is what a lot of the justices and the judiciary look to in order to inform their rulings. If the public shifts, so will the Court.

[The_Doctor]

the court is not in synch with the general public...and to a lesser extent, the EC makes sure, the senate and the presidency also aren't.

This isn't necessarily true. For example, since 1980, generally, a conservative coalition has ruled the United States with periodic breaks or stymied the left (Clinton 1993-1994, Obama 2009-2011). As a consequence, our Courts have become more conservative, as they notice public opinion. Likewise, the Warren Court was more liberal, because that era saw more liberal majorities and dominance.

The Senate and electoral college can distort a bit ... but they don't overturn popular will. In fact, the Senate tends to closely track the party in the White House. If you look at every election since 2000, the Senate majority has usually gone with the White House. (2000 was a tie, 2004 Republican, 2008 Democratic, 2012 Democratic, 2016 Republican). The swings tend to emulate the country as a whole. 

I tend to believe our government goes in general sync with the way the country has gone. I believe certainly we're in a Reagan-conservative dominated coalition so our government represents that model.

[The_Doctor]

It is win-win. Either McConnell nukes he filibuster, which is good for democracy, or he doesn't and Gorsuch is stopped.

The purpose of the filibuster is to slow things down. The founders wanted to make it difficult to pass laws - as to not have a single administration make drastic and wide sweeping changes because of one election, or have one party have absolute rule because they have 50+1% of the seats. It's the house (the 'people's legislature') that responds to sudden popular opinion. Things are only supposed to get through the senate when there is wide, geographical support across the country. It's a counteraction to mob rule.

This, along with our constitution that limits the government's ability to infringe on our rights, is why America not only hasn't fallen apart despite such a diversified makeup, but has thrived like no country before it.

Our Founders were brilliant in structuring a government that defends people against your kind of thinking, which inevitably leads to oligarchies.

It's so disgusting that Harry Reid changed 200 years of of senate procedure just so Obama could pack the courts with anti-american liberal activists. If Trump did this, every single one of you would be losing your s--t accusing him of being a fascist.

The filibuster is going to die. The Republic will stand with a more majoritarian Senate. In fact civil rights was stopped by the filibuster as it so happened.  It was weakened as a result. The republic didn't end.