Obama left his presidency with a vacant seat on the Supreme Court. What does it mean for democracy when Trump appoints a political hack as our next SCOTUS judge? Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. come together to discuss what the Democratic Party can do to fight back against the Republicans.
Transcription of the above video:
Sam Seder:
We were talking about the disposition that democrats should be taking, and we should probably also talk about what kind of strategies they could use here. Obstruction would be the one I imagine we’re going to all want. The question is, how do they do this without controlling a single lever of the federal government? What should their disposition be broadly, Pat?
Mike Papantonio:
I heard Obama give a speech saying, “Let’s all unify and let’s all get along.” As I listened I realize that Trump is going to do just the opposite. Trump has control of everything now. He’s not going to dally around like Obama did for two years when Obama was “let’s reach across the aisle” nonsense with people that would gladly have kicked him out the highest window of the White House. Those are the people he just wanted to get along with. They wanted conciliatory, let’s move in. We’re not going to see that with Trump. Trump will take control immediately, there won’t be any reaching across the aisle. There won’t be kumbaya, can’t we just get along.
He’s going to appoint 109 federal judges as quickly as he can. He’s going to put into place his issues; some of them positive, most of them negative. You’re going to see it immediately. He’s going to search and destroy the people who got in his way. We’re looking at two totally different approaches to politics. The worst thing democrats can do is say, “Oh gee, we got to get along.” That was Harry Reid’s problem, and not just Harry Reid’s, it’s Pelosi’s problem also when they should not have done that. They should have objected. They should have raised the discussion to where progressives and even moderate democrats would say, “This is wrong. This is wrong and we can’t allow it to happen.” They have to give these people a voice. Leadership gives a voice to these people who were angry about what’s happened.
Sam Seder:
Bobby, your sense of this? Democrats seem to lag in their understanding of just how ruthless the republicans will be. Whenever a democrat is elected it’s a question of a mandate. The republicans don’t seem to need a mandate. This whole thing of a mandate doesn’t even seem to exist to me. It’s either you take the power or you don’t.
Mike Papantonio:
Right, right.
Sam Seder:
Bobby, what’s-
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
I’m just praying that they’ll do everything they can to block these judges, because that’s a generation. Those guys are on the bench for 30 or 40 years and they change the law and they change the whole character of our country. In particularly on my issue, on environmental issues, we’re at a critical point in history. The world really needs America’s leadership. We’ve been waiting because the carbon regulation has been sitting in front of a four to four Supreme Court, so we’ve been waiting for that last appointment. Now that appointment’s going to occur and it’s likely to occur in a bad way that says, where they come down with a decision which says that the federal government does not have the authority to regulate carbon.
Mike Papantonio:
Are you a little bit concerned Bobby, Sam, about the idea that we’re never really going to have a unified democratic even filibuster attempt. I mean, look, you’ve got Manchin out of West Virginia. The guy may as well be a republican.
Sam Seder:
He announced on election day that assuming that the senate was 50/50 that he would consider becoming a Republican.
Mike Papantonio:
There you go, I didn’t even know that, but that’s the example of what I’m talking about. You’ve got Schumer who, where it comes to Wall Street he would give his Rolex watch to Wall Street every time he possibly could. The guy’s just completely enamored with Wall Street, that’s where his loyalty is. You’ve got at least five or six very important senators that you can’t really trust. You can’t really say that they’re going to side up with the democrats. I think it’s difficult to pull off what you have to pull off. That is to not necessarily be obstructionists, but to certainly slow things down just a tad. I don’t see it happening. I don’t think they have the ability, I don’t think they have the mindset, and I don’t believe they’ve got the following to do that. That’s a very scary proposition to me.
Sam Seder:
Well, I think the existence of the filibuster is really going to be at the will of Mitch McConnell. If Mitch McConnell finds it to advantageous to allow the democrats to filibuster a bill that would totally destroy the Affordable Care Act because he wants to run against the democrats for filibustering a bill that would destroy the Affordable Care Act in 2018, he’ll do that. If it comes down to appointing a supreme court judge, I think the idea that they won’t get rid of the filibuster is fanciful. I think it’ll be gone.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
They’ll get rid of the filibuster. The scary thing about the judges is with the federalist society already has a pipeline of these guys. They select them for their hard core, intractable, impermeable right wing ideology, and also for their youth. They deliberately put people on who they think are going to be able to continue to steer the country for 40 or even 50 years. They already have these people fully vetted just waiting in line.
Sam Seder:
Oh, sure.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
We don’t have anything like that.
Sam Seder:
We know that Donald Trump has waved the list around. No, we have nothing like that, and he’s waved the list around. He’s already gotten it from the Heritage Foundation-
Mike Papantonio:
Chamber of Commerce-
Sam Seder:
He’s got the list. What are the chances that you guys think that Obama somehow figures out how to put Garland on there as a recess appointment during the switch over between the-
Mike Papantonio:
Look, one thing you can count on Obama, he will never do anything like that. That is part of what he’s going to be left with in his legacy. That is yeah, we’re all for compromise, we all want to get along, kumbaya, kumbaya, but you’re not playing with normal people here, and he never seemed to understand that in eight years as president. I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
