GOP going nuclear in a class war they started
The Republicans launched a class war and started destroying whatever decorum was left in American politics in the 1980s. The Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch is the only appropriate response.
Whenever Republicans call for more decorum, it always reminds me of one of my favorite lines in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when -- after a moment of unspeakable carnage in which sword-wielding knights mistakenly interrupt a wedding -- Michael Palin as the father of the groom blurts outs: "Look, this is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who!"
Today's not-so-happy occasion is the looming confirmation of Neil Gorsuch as a Supreme Court justice. Democrats in the Senate -- whose recent spine-echtomy surgery was apparently a success -- now have the votes to filibuster Gorsuch, and so it's all but certain that the GOP will roll out the so-called "nuclear option" of ending said filibuster and jamming Gorsuch onto the court with 50-something votes. And when the Democrats dare mention the Republicans' years of unprecedented obstruction that culminated in the failure to even hold a hearing for 2016 High Court nominee Merrick Garland, the GOP is suddenly all, whoa, let's not bicker and argue about who killed who.
What's more, any pushback against the corporate takeover of this country gets labelled as "class warfare." And they're damn right, it is class warfare -- in a war that was started by the wealthy elite classes in the 1980s by cutting taxes on the rich, raising payroll taxes on the working class, and crushing labor unions. And when Ronald Reagan tried to ratify that revolution by nominating the right-wing Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, the Democrats briefly found their backbone. Good for them.
But since Bork, it's been tit-for-tat. Both parties used the filibuster to block routine judicial appointments until the Democrats altered the rules in 2013, right before losing control of the Senate. But it was the Republicans who declared they would not cooperate on anything while Barack Obama was in the White House, culminating in last year's shameful treatment of Garland, in which the GOP-led Senate decided to shirk its constitutional duty and shred whatever "decorum" was left, which was none.
So good for the Democrats for standing up for something -- even it's a political suicide mission. Yes, it's partly payback for Garland, to which they are entitled. But this is also about something more important, as Gorsuch will enshrine the corporate takeover of the judiciary, carrying the spirit of Robert Bork deep into the 21st Century. It's the class warfare that America needs right now, the lost cause worth fighting for. You wanna bicker and argue about who killed who? Fine. It was the Republicans.