It is November 2019. A genie offers you a deal...

[Beet]

Can't believe I'm agreeing with jfern, but the correct answer is no if you're a Democrat. A 6-3 SCOTUS means all of a Democratic president and Senate's bills are at the mercy of a conservative veto anyway. That's a far worse outcome than what was still a possibility in 2019, which was the Democrats winning the presidency and maintaining a 4-4-1 court with Roberts as the middleman.

Stopping the bleeding is more of a priority than having scar for the rest of your life

Either one should have been looked at as unacceptably bad. You should be going for the "gold", which was the Presidency plus a moderate Court.

Yes, that would be ideal, but getting Trump out and a D senate in is more important because the longer we have Trump/R senate, the more justices they can appoint, and the more screwed up Democracy becomes

At a certain point, it's a binary loss. A 8-1 loss is no different than a 6-3 loss. The former is even better because it would wake up more people to the need to expand the Court.

A 6-3 loss is easier to reverse in the long term. A 8-1 loss would likely take a lot longer to correct.

Justices of the same party tend to wait until a same-party president is in office before retiring, so you could be waiting longer than you think. The point is it's unacceptably bad in lieu of expanding the Court.

As we saw with RBG, justices can die unexpectedly.

But it's relatively rare. Kennedy, O'Connor, Souter and Stevens were replaced by a president of the Party of their choice. The point is it's a really bad situation that shouldn't be accepted.

Trump losing would be one less window of opportunity for them to retire under an R president. Thomas is 72. By the end of Biden's 1rst term, he'll be 76, and 80 if he wins re-election. That's getting quite old. Death typically isn't super predictable, and you never know when someone of that age will die

Yes but even if he dies at the end of Biden's term it's enough time to eviscerate any legislation that Biden passes during his term. In 2019 you could have gotten both a Trump loss and a 4-4-1 Court. The Dems should've gone for that.

RBG's death was not that unpredictable. She was criticized for not retiring earlier, and Justices will be more careful from now on.

You're assuming the SC will block literally everything Biden puts forwards. Besides, I would rather have Biden being the one putting the bills forwards than Trump, even if in both cases, they won't pass at the end of the day.

Why would anyone care who is putting forth bills that don't pass? This is incoherent. When the SCOTUS makes a decision, it goes into law straight away, unlike the president, who can only put forward bills and rules that are subject to judicial veto. Another reason why having the Courts against you is unacceptable.

[LtNOWIS]

In November 2019 I had no compelling reason to believe Dems would win the presidency.

So even from a Dem perspective, having Breyer or Ginsburg die or something is bad, but it's something that could happen anyways. If you don't take the deal then it's quite likely the Dem nominee gets wrecked by Trump on the basis of the booming economy, and Trump gets to replace Ginsburg, Breyer, and maybe Thomas or Alito.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'd reject the deal because I wanted and still want Bernie Sanders to be President, so my choice would be rational given that preference.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Can't believe I'm agreeing with jfern, but the correct answer is no if you're a Democrat. A 6-3 SCOTUS means all of a Democratic president and Senate's bills are at the mercy of a conservative veto anyway. That's a far worse outcome than what was still a possibility in 2019, which was the Democrats winning the presidency and maintaining a 4-4-1 court with Roberts as the middleman.

Stopping the bleeding is more of a priority than having scar for the rest of your life

Either one should have been looked at as unacceptably bad. You should be going for the "gold", which was the Presidency plus a moderate Court.

Yes, that would be ideal, but getting Trump out and a D senate in is more important because the longer we have Trump/R senate, the more justices they can appoint, and the more screwed up Democracy becomes

At a certain point, it's a binary loss. A 8-1 loss is no different than a 6-3 loss. The former is even better because it would wake up more people to the need to expand the Court.

A 6-3 loss is easier to reverse in the long term. A 8-1 loss would likely take a lot longer to correct.

Justices of the same party tend to wait until a same-party president is in office before retiring, so you could be waiting longer than you think. The point is it's unacceptably bad in lieu of expanding the Court.

As we saw with RBG, justices can die unexpectedly.

But it's relatively rare. Kennedy, O'Connor, Souter and Stevens were replaced by a president of the Party of their choice. The point is it's a really bad situation that shouldn't be accepted.

Trump losing would be one less window of opportunity for them to retire under an R president. Thomas is 72. By the end of Biden's 1rst term, he'll be 76, and 80 if he wins re-election. That's getting quite old. Death typically isn't super predictable, and you never know when someone of that age will die

Yes but even if he dies at the end of Biden's term it's enough time to eviscerate any legislation that Biden passes during his term. In 2019 you could have gotten both a Trump loss and a 4-4-1 Court. The Dems should've gone for that.

RBG's death was not that unpredictable. She was criticized for not retiring earlier, and Justices will be more careful from now on.

You're assuming the SC will block literally everything Biden puts forwards. Besides, I would rather have Biden being the one putting the bills forwards than Trump, even if in both cases, they won't pass at the end of the day.

Why would anyone care who is putting forth bills that don't pass? This is incoherent. When the SCOTUS makes a decision, it goes into law straight away, unlike the president, who can only put forward bills and rules that are subject to judicial veto. Another reason why having the Courts against you is unacceptable.

The SC only gets the final say on what it's able to rule on though. Also; the conservative justices have nothing to gain out of destroying American Democracy, so I doubt that they'll treat Biden as an illegitimate President if elected. SC justices should require 60 votes in the senate though, so that way the court isn't stashed full of partisan justices, and when Presidents nominate someone, members of the opposing party have to agree. We need to go back to a time where we look at the justices by their credentials and not by their ideological leanings.