Thread: SCOTAL Itch
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Old 02-05-2017, 01:03 AM
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erimir erimir is offline
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Default Re: SCOTAL Itch

What was their winning strategy?

I recall being told that bringing up the Supreme Court wasn't that important when I tried to use it in an argument. I tried bringing up the many important liberal achievements of the Warren Court (which we take for granted now, but give you some idea of how much the court can move the ball forward).

I remember seeing anti-Hillary leftists claim that it wasn't fair to bring up the Supreme Court as to why they should vote for Democrats, because there's always the possibility of a SCOTUS seat opening up, which is unfair because the stakes of the presidency will always be too high to waste your vote on an idiot like Jill Stein, and it's not fair to demand that they deal with the system we have, which constitutionally disadvantages third-parties and makes voting for them for president pointless.

I also saw widespread disbelief that Clinton's appointees would rule in liberal ways, despite all four of the liberals on the court voting against Citizens United and generally in ways that liberals like, despite the fact that they were all four nominated by noted neoliberals Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Both of whom ran on more centrist platforms. Obama's platform was even to Clinton's right in 2008! And Hillary was thought to be a liberal extremist back in the 90s. But whatever.

So I'm not sure it could've become a rallying cry for her campaign.

What I will say is that nominating Garland was probably a strategic mistake. Obama should've picked someone that at least one Democratic constituency could rally around: a woman, a racial minority, or someone farther to the left (particularly given Sanders's surprising success, which was already evident at that point). To be a little cynical, playing some identity politics could also have made it possible to paint the opposition as not merely about the Supreme Court (which Democrats and left-of-Democrats appear not to find very motivating) but about bigoted opposition to the candidate, which might've been more motivating than trying to explain why the Supreme Court matters.

This is what I thought before he announced his pick last year.

I will also say that Garland was evidently picked to highlight Republican hypocrisy in unanimously opposing someone they had recently suggested as a pick they could plausibly support. Given that, it is strange that they didn't follow through on that strategy. If you're going that route, you need to be attacking them as hypocrites constantly. Otherwise there was no point in picking Garland vs. the other options I mentioned above. But I think that was the wrong strategy anyway, as it's been evident for a while that Republicans won't be hurt much by their hypocrisy and the media certainly won't play along.
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