Episode 108 Show Notes- Justice Ginsburg, President Trump, and the 2020 Elections
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Episode Description
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has sent shockwaves across the United States and it has totally upended the 2020 presidential race. The immediate question to emerge is will President Trump nominate someone and the Republican party quickly move to confirm that individual or will this seat go unfilled and let the voters decide. For some, it’s a black and white issue. If you are a Republican or Conservative, you say nominate and confirm. If you are Democrat or progressive, you say wait until the election. However, like everything in politics, many seek to oversimplify the issue and fail to provide an analysis of all potential outcomes. Between the coronavirus, the death of George Floyd, the ensuing protests turning into riots, and surging violence in the inner cities, and now, the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there’s a lot at stake.
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Intro
Welcome everyone to another episode of The PAS Report Podcast.
Normally on Monday’s I release the interview episodes here at The P.A.S. Report podcast. But since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I felt it’s really important to give my thoughts today instead. I have a great interview episode on Wednesday with Gabriel Montalvo, so make sure you tune in.
The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday has sent shockwaves across the United States and it has totally upended the 2020 presidential race. 2020 has been a crazy year that’s for sure, and I don’t think anyone can possibly take into account all the variables. We have never seen anything like this.
Between the coronavirus, the death of George Floyd, the ensuing protests turning into riots, and surging violence in the inner cities, and now, the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there’s a lot at stake. You’re only going to get this analysis here at The P.A.S. Report. For those of you who are new listeners or for those of you that don’t know P.A.S. stands for Politics, Analysis, and Strategies.
And if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, be sure to listen because it certainly woke a lot of people up to the fact that there are many who are undermining the 2020 elections before voting even starts.
You know you hit a nerve when you’re getting emails by progressives saying the most vile things. However, they have zero chance of silencing me and I will continue to speak out against the unholy alliance that will not accept any election results unless it’s a Joe Biden victory. I’m going to continue to talk about this because very few are, and I think this is one of the biggest threats to our system.
Before I jump in, be sure to visit The P.A.S. Report website and sign up for the newsletter.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Normally when one passes away, I like to give it a little before I bring it to politics. However, this is an election year, and given that we are 43 days from an election, I have to get right to it.
With that being said, I do want to take a minute and recognize that the impact that Justice Ginsburg has had on the Supreme Court and the mark she’s made on history. I don’t have to agree with her judicial philosophy to recognize how important she was.
She was an icon for women. She was a giant amongst women. She broke barriers. I disagreed with her on most of her rulings, but I can still respect her. As decent human beings, we must reject the natural inclinations of factions where we look to demonize those we disagree with.
And there is one area where I can respect the role Justice Ginsburg played, and that’s the area of privacy rights. When it came to issues of privacy rights we saw an unusual alliance between the most conservative justice, Justice Scalia, and the most liberal justice, Justice Ginsburg.
Justice Scalia had an enormous amount of respect for Justice Ginsburg, and they became really good friends while on the bench. If Justice Scalia were alive today, he too would be paying tribute. Therefore, so can I.
Politics
With that being said, we will decide who the next President of the United States will be in just 43 days, and so it quickly becomes political. And this Justice Ginsburg’s death was a political bomb being dropped.
The immediate question to emerge is will President Trump nominate someone and the Republican party quickly move to confirm that individual or will this seat go unfilled and let the voters decide.
For some, it’s a black and white issue. If you are a Republican or Conservative, you say nominate and confirm. If you are Democrat or progressive, you say wait until the election.
However, like everything in politics, many seek to oversimplify the issue. Many don’t realize how complicated things like this are. Many don’t see all the pitfalls out there no matter what choice is made.
There are many political calculations and miscalculations that need to be taken into account. Politics is like a chess match. You must think three to four steps ahead. You must anticipate your opponent’s next move. You want to know an outcome before you make your move because one mistake can lead to a checkmate.
Just think of 2013, when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided to use the nuclear option when it came to judicial nominees. Majority Leader Reid was mad because Republicans were using the filibuster, which was their right as the minority party, in order to block these nominees.
Democrats decided they were tired of this and so Majority Leader Reid decided to do a rule change and killed the filibuster for judicial nominees. I warned then that this was a dumb idea. It’s because I understand politics and I know that what one party does, the other party will use the same options and expand once they get in power.
Do you think Democrats now regret that move? They are probably so shortsighted they aren’t even thinking about it. But once again, politics is a chess match, and the democrats didn’t anticipate how doing away with the nuclear option would come back to bite them.
And here we are today. We are at a point where the future of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance, and there is the potential to have the court lean conservative for the next couple of decades.
What are President Trump’s Options?
So, what should President Trump and the Republican Senate do? What is his right as President of the United States and what is the smartest path forward politically?
Constitutionally, it is the President’s right to nominate and the Senate’s right to confirm. Some will invoke the McConnell rule that in an election year, a Supreme Court vacancy shouldn’t be filled, and the voters should decide.
Senate Majority Leader invoked this rule in 2016 when justice Scalia died, and President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the bench. McConnell refused to hold hearings and said the next President would select the justice.
Here we are four years later with a new Supreme Court vacancy that will surely change the makeup of the Court. Democrats will scream that the McConnell rule should apply. Republicans will say that the McConnel Rule only applies to lame-duck Presidents who are not term-limited out and the rule only applied when the political party of the executive branch and the Senate are different.
There is no doubt that if President Trump nominates someone and the Senate moves to confirm, the Democrats and their allies in the media industrial complex will scream that it’s unfair and Republicans are hypocrites. While it would be hypocritical of Republicans, they would be attacked either way and in politics, hypocrisy knows no bounds.
The Democrats have been the champions of hypocrisy over the last 4-years especially when it comes to the integrity of elections as I illustrated last week.
Whether President Trump nominates someone, and the Republicans move to confirm, or the President decides to wait until the election, either option is filled with pitfalls that must be carefully examined before a decision is made.
Should President Trump nominate, and Republicans move to confirm
Let’s examine the nominating and confirmation option first. Senate Majority Leader McConnell needs to hold an emergency meeting with all Republican Senators.
Senate Majority Leader McConnell needs to get a firm commitment from each and every Republican on where they stand. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, and they can only afford to lose three Republicans at best. The reality is not one single Democrat will vote in support of a President Trump nominee. Not one, including blue dog Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin. If Republicans lose 3 seats, Vice president Pence would cast the tie-breaking vote, and the nominee would be confirmed.
Unfortunately, you have several weak-kneed Republicans, these are considered your RINOs, who constantly play to the media. They don’t like to be criticized and so many times they do what they think will get them media accolades and will help them win a popularity contest. These are your Senators Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and a couple of others.
Think about how the media industrial complex is going to savage the weak-kneed Republicans over the next week in an attempt to bully them and threaten that they better not support a Trump nominee until after the election. Will these Senators have enough courage to do what’s right or will they cave to the pressure?
If Senate Majority Leader moves to confirmation, and more than three Republicans vote not to confirm, this would be an epic disaster for Republicans, and it would give Democrats a huge victory. It would be an embarrassing loss for President Trump and Majority Leader McConnell, and it would have severe repercussions throughout the election.
I can assure you that if President Trump nominates, and more than three Republicans defect, Republican and Conservative voters will hold those Senators accountable, and the Senate will turn Democrat in the election. Republicans and Conservatives will feel betrayed, and rightly so. They will be angry and shortsighted. They will still go to the polls and vote for the President, but they will not vote for the Republican Senate candidate. While they won’t pull the lever for the Democrat, they will choose not to vote that race.
Senators like Susan Collins are in a tight race. They need every Republican and Conservative vote they can get, and if these voters walk away, these Senators are doomed.
So, President Trump and Majority Leader need to see where the members of their party stand. They need firm commitments. Because if they pull the trigger and move forward to confirm the nominee, they better be 100% sure that the nominee will be confirmed. If the confirmation gamble does not succeed, the Republican Senate is finished, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will become the Majority Leader in 2021. God help us if that happens.
Don’t Have the Votes
So, what should President Trump do if they don’t have the votes? This is a difficult path as well, but one that President Trump can capitalize on if he makes the right move. Republicans need to determine if they have the votes quietly. You don’t want it leaking to the press that the only reason President Trump doesn’t move forward is that he didn’t have enough Republican support.
If they determine they don’t have enough votes, President Trump should invite Senate Minority Leader Schumer, Minority Whip Durbin, and blue dog Democrat Joe Manchin to the White House. President Trump should announce he wants to meet with these Senators to get their input.
President Trump should then announce that because of the 2016 election, and what happened to Merrick Garland, he has decided that it should be up to the voters to determine who gets to appoint the next Supreme Court justice. There are risks involved here and I will explain those in a minute, but it would surely be better than a Republican defeat during a confirmation vote.
This approach would do a few things where the President could benefit. First, it would appear as if he is extending an olive branch to his political opponents. While most Democrats will never support this President because they suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, the appearance of being magnanimous has the potential to win over some independent voters and can be a uniting force.
Second, if the President has to go this route, when he makes the announcement, he needs to light a fire under every Republican and Conservative that they have to get to the polls if they want to have a conservative-leaning Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is like the holy grail to many Conservatives and Republicans as they have been burned many times before. President Trump can use this to galvanize the Republicans and Conservatives. This can boost Republican turnout in the election.
He should name the nominee who he would appoint if he wins in November, and he should force Joe Biden to name who he would select that way you have contrasting views. More importantly, it boxes Joe Biden into a corner. If Joe Biden releases the name of a radical progressive, it may turn off some independents. If he names a moderate nominee, it will create a backlash amongst the progressive/leftist wing of the Democrat party, and we could see an internal revolt where the far-left refuses to go to the polls.
Finally, it boxes the media into a corner as well. While many rightly believe the President doesn’t get a fair shake, and the media industrial complex will criticize the President no matter what, a move like this will have to be praised in the mainstream media outlets. They won’t be able to criticize the President for this move, and if the press tries to criticize it, they will push themselves further into irrelevancy and it would be more evidence exposing the media for what they really are, a bunch of ideological hacks.
However, this option carries risk as well. While it would galvanize Republicans and Conservatives to the polls, it would also galvanize some democrats to the polls if Joe Biden makes a decent pick.
Another problem is something I spoke about last week. I already anticipate that there will be a lot of election fraud in this election. If the Supreme Court hangs in the balance, I think many on the left will become far more desperate and bolder, and the chances for fraud increase dramatically.
Even worse will be if President Trump loses the election. Then the hopes of a conservative-leaning court who believe in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and uphold the idea of limited government will be dashed.
Closing
No matter what option is chosen, political risks are always going to be involved. As I stated, if the Republicans have a firm commitment and can push through a nominee, they need to do so.
I believe that more today than I did on Friday, especially considering that many on the left have threatened that if President Trump nominates someone, they will take to the streets and have threatened violence.
To me, don’t ever make a dare, because it only hardens my resolve. Our system cannot be held hostage through threats of intimidation and violence. The President has the constitutional right to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, and the Senate has the right to confirm that nominee. We need to show the progressives that bullying tactics don’t work.
And if the left wants to engage in violence, it will further show why they should never come close to power and can boost President Trump’s reelection.
I also think that if Republicans have the votes, they need to pull the trigger because, in all likelihood, there are likely to be court challenges over the election. As I showed last week, the unholy alliance consisting of the far-left, Democrats, never-Trumpers, and the bureaucratic deep state, have no intention of accepting the results of this election.
The Biden campaign has already hired 500 lawyers. God only knows how many far-left groups also have an army of lawyers ready at the go.
An 8-person Supreme Court does not suffice in this election because a 4-4 tie will automatically render the lower courts ruling legitimate. Also, Chief Justice John Roberts is not a reliable vote, and it’s not hard to imagine him voting with the left of the court just to create the tie. It’s clear Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t want to set precedents and upset the status quo so I can’t really trust him.
However, if Republicans are able to seat a conservative justice, understand that there are major consequences if the Republicans lose the Senate and the Presidency in the election. It would be even more important for every Republican and Conservative to get out there and vote.
Democrats will be furious, and if they take control of the Senate and have a Biden presidency, I can assure you, they will be the most radical Congress and presidential administration we have ever seen. They will quickly move to change every institution of government.
As payback, they will immediately change the rules and get rid of the filibuster preventing the minority party to slow or stop any far-left legislation. But they won’t stop there.
They will begin to pack the Supreme Court appointing judges who believe in judicial activism and encourage the court to legislate from the bench. They will pack the court to push an ideological vision and will set a dangerous precedent going forward.
They will quickly move to try and grant statehood to Washington DC and Puerto Rico thereby guaranteeing Democrat rule for the next few decades.
They will pass legislation granting taxpayer-funded abortions, and allowing third term, and partial-birth abortions. They will pass legislation and usher in an era of socialized medicine.
They will crush any industry they don’t like with burdensome regulations. They will implement speech codes, and go after anyone who dissents.
So, understand that if Republicans can seat President Trump’s nominee they should do so immediately. But also understand that if they can do that, Republicans better be prepared to vote en masse because Democrats will be on the warpath should they get into power.
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