Senator McConnell has placed his marker on the table.
ABC news is reporting that the President will announce his nominee shortly.
BREAKING: Pres. Trump is expected to put forth a nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat in the coming days, multiple sources close to the president and with direct knowledge of the situation tell @ABC News. https://t.co/NpSSjiSOLo
— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2020
I expect that the President will announce his nominee no later than Wednesday and that Senator McConnell will have that nominee up for a vote before the full Senate no later than the Wednesday after that so that the new justice can be seated before the Supreme Court starts its new term in October. And to try to do sort of a judicial nomination shock and awe campaign by moving so quickly that no one can respond to what McConnell is doing.
I’ve seen Senator Murkowski’s statement, and it was nice to read, but the simple reality is that for Senators Collins, McSally, Gardner, Tillis, and Graham it is ride or die. They cannot let go of the tiger that is the President and his base at this point because it will not get them the Democratic votes to either save them in the case of Collins, McSally, and Gardner, nor to open up their reelection campaigns from the statistical ties that Tillis and Graham are in. Abandoning the President and his base of supporters on this will cost them more support and votes, then trying to look like they’re standing on principle.
The question is not what can be done to stop it, though I definitely believe as much hell as possible should be raised over what Senator McConnell is going to do. The question is what you are willing to do after Senator McConnell does what he is going to do to install a sixth conservative associate justice on the Supreme Court.
I expect there will be violence over this. Violence between senators. Violence directed at senators. And violence between Americans. I’m not calling for it, but as a nat-sec professional who works on low intensity warfare, this is what I expect.
Updated at 10:30 PM EDT
I just want to clarify and elaborate a bit on what I think is likely to happen. I expect that the violence directed at senators will come from the hard core and extreme right. It will be directed at the Republican senators who are being reported as potentially not supporting the President and Senator McConnell on confirming a new justice before the election and the inauguration; Gardner, McSally, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Graham, Grassley, and Alexander. It will start with threatening emails, voicemails, and direct messages. And it may escalate to actual attempts at physical intimidation to send a message: get or stay in line or else… Similarly, I expect that violence between Americans will originate from the same direction. Some MAGA asshole will decide to gun his car through a vigil being held in memory of RBG or a demonstration and rally to demonstrate to Senator McConnell and his GOP majority that they have to abide by the rules McConnell established in 2016. Or that, as we’ve seen with the MAGA truck/vehicle rallies in Portland, that those supporting the President will show up and pepper spray and paintball those standing vigil for RBG or rallying to pressure McConnell and his GOP majority to not be hypocrites. This violence will be stochastic terrorism, but if it happens, I expect it will originate on the hard core and extreme right.
Open thread.
