Quick(ish) take/coming soon: McConnell's admission of his expanded Supreme Court blockade

 When Antonin Scalia died, the political world was mostly shocked and aghast that Sen. Mitch McConnell's immediate reaction was to invent a new rule that said "no Supreme Court confirmations in election years."  Everyone who wasn't a complete idiot knew that he was not only lying about the claim that it was an old rule, but that he would break it for Republican presidents, as he did to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.  Every single person who took McConnell at his word in 2016 should be disenfranchised for stupidity.  Fuck universal suffrage.

As I have been saying for years, when the epitaph for American democracy is written, it will say: "Murdered in cold blood by Mitch McConnell."  I was saying it before Trump, and with Trump out of office, McConnell is roving the battlefield, looking for survivors to slaughter.  McConnell is every bit as psychopathic as Trump, but scarier because he isn't developmentally disabled.  He's smart.

McConnell's latest statement removes any doubt.  No games, no wink-wink-nudge-nudge-say-no-more, and no obviously bullshit rules that he clearly intends to break in the future.  He has just admitted that Republicans won't confirm Democratic nominations.  Period.  If there is a Democratic president and a Republican majority Senate, any Supreme Court vacancy will be blockaded as the Republicans try to hold it open for a Republican president to fill.

The first obvious point is that Breyer needs to step down now.  I have pointed out that Ginsburg was a narcissistic fool whose stupidity fucked over every cause she ever claimed to support, and every lefty who worships her is a dupe.  She undid everything she ever wanted to accomplish on the Court by not stepping down when Obama could name a successor.  I said it when she was alive, I pointed out what was coming, and I was right.

Hi, I'm Cassandra.

Will Breyer be smarter than Ginsburg?  He has the example from which to learn, but as a general rule, liberals suck at this kind of thing.  I ain't placin' bets, but if the old dude croaks, McConnell blockades the seat, and President Tucker Carlson appoints Lauren Boebert, I'm gonna say, "I told you so."  I may then flee the country, but I'll shout, "I told you so," over my shoulder while running.

This leads to two questions.  The first, strategic, and the second, institutional.  (Also, some practical questions, like where will I go?  Canada?  I'm sick of cold.  Bermuda?  The Cayman Islands?  What kind of financial transfers will I have to arrange?  But when President Gohmert goes on his rampage, don't expect me to trust his Supreme Court to protect me.  Fuck y'all, buh'bye.)

The strategic question is:  how should the Democrats respond?  The institutional question is, can the constitutional system be saved?  And by that, I mean, can it be saved from the Republican Party?

When McConnell first announced the Scalia blockade, my response was the following prediction:  the Democrats would have to respond with court packing.  After the Amy Coney Barrett affair, the strategic and moral imperative of court packing is even stronger, yet the Democrats do not now, and likely won't get the votes for any court packing plan at any point in the foreseeable future (particularly since the Republicans are on a path to either win future elections, steal them, or burn the country to the ground with actual, literal flames barring the previous two possibilities).  That drastically limits any strategic response.

Institutionally, what can or should be done?  The thing is, I think I have an idea.  It would require at minimum a rule change in the Senate (exceedingly unlikely, nigh impossible), and ideally, a constitutional amendment (no fucking way in the pit of Hades), but I think the game theoretic principles are sound.  Translation:  it's game theory.  Useless bullshit that works in the abstract and has no applicability to the real world.  This is why I am either (a) a professor, (b) some schlub, shouting into the void, or (c) technically, both, rather than a person who matters.

Anyway, the gist is this:  raise the threshold for confirming judges to an absurdly high number:  90%, thereby making party control of the Senate functionally irrelevant, while allowing a role for advise & consent, and keeping in mind the inevitability of a few intractable assholes in the chamber.  Scholarly references, Buchanan & Tullock, Axelrod.

It won't happen, obviously, but I like to play with ideas.  It's like, science fiction, or something.

My goal is to write something on Saturday for my political science-y post of the weekend.  Even though it is so absurd as to qualify as science fiction.  Like I said, I'm a game theorist, but since we're fucked anyway, why not play around with fantastical ideas for the fucking hell of it?

If Rome is gonna burn, I'm gonna play my fiddle.

Well, not me, 'cuz I suck.  Here's Stuart Duncan, the greatest fiddler of all time, on Live From Here.