The Dems need only 41 senators for a filibuster.
The rules have changed. Republicans only need 51 votes.
This is exactly why we liberals aren't gonna watch the hearing. The Koch and NRA jurist is going to win like Gorsuch. I didn't watch either.
It is for this reason that I view it as foolish that the Democrats make a big deal of opposing a nominee that's going to be confirmed one way or the other. They will not look good at doing so, and it will, in the end, injure their chances to take back the House and (at a minimum) hold the line in the Senate. They can do both of these things, but they have to get it right. Manchin and Heitkamp have much to lose by appearing to be obstructionists, and there's a difference in this between merely voting "no" on the nominee and being part of the obstruction.
One of the luxuries of being a minority party is that the Democrats are free to be as liberal (indeed, as leftist) as they want to be, because they haven't a prayer of being in the majority. The Democrats now have the minority party mentality that the GOP used to have. And most Democrats today, from its elected officials to it's lowliest registered voter, have become accustomed to the GOP controlling the Congress and their state legislatures. That's the polar opposite from the 1970s, and even the 1980s, when Democrats controlled the majority of state legislatures and the House of Representatives (and only lost the Senate for 6 years). THAT Democratic Party achieved real benefits for the American people, before its ideologues and its identity politicians made it impossible to win in tougher territory.
A MAJORITY-ORIENTED party develops some kind of consensus about what is really important and pushes for that. There are economic issues that the Democrats could build on, issues where they could actually convince Americans that they are right. THAT would render the SCOTUS irrelevant. Perhaps it's time for the Democrats to actually agree on common policy that would actually address the issues of the declining middle class and go out and convince people that they are right. Instead, we're treated to their Hot, New, Star calling for the abolition of ICE and their Screaming Mimi (Maxine Waters) advocating systematic harrassment of officials on their own private time. (I wonder what Ms. Waters' security team would think of me if I called her out in the middle of her meal in some public eatery.) This isn't the way to build a majority, not in the least.
