The death of liberal legal legend Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left one of the most decisive Supreme Court seats in recent memory vacant and 2020 in a uniquely high-stakes tailspin. Given the already unprecedented case of a Democratic Supreme Court appointee dying right before a Republican president and Republican-controlled Senate are up for election, President Trump and Mitch McConnell have the extraordinary debacle of whether to safeguard future Senate prospects and abide by the Senate majority leader’s decision not to hold hearings or votes on Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia or to throw caution to the wind in a last-ditch attempt to secure a conservative Supreme Court for a generation with a gamble on a nomination.
If the GOP decides to hold off on a Supreme Court nomination, and the party loses this November, an enthused Democratic Party could not just convince President Joe Biden to appoint a Justice Elizabeth Warren, but also to cede to the Left and pack the courts. If Trump and McConnell decide to push a nomination through, they could mobilize Democratic turnout to Obama-era proportions, sacrificing not just Trump’s White House but the Senate for years.
But there’s a third way, one full of the showmance Trump thrives on and the appeal of selling Republican senators.
The Trump administration could simply decide on a nominee, name him or her, but promise that not one member of the GOP will push the nomination forward unless Trump is named the victor of the 2020 election.
Such a move would not kill the candidacies of fraught incumbent Sens. Susan Collins and Cory Gardner, who would face fire from either side, depending on how they voted before their fractious elections. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a key vote, has already said that she wouldn’t vote on a nomination until after the election.
So just as Scalia’s seat became a uniquely motivating factor in 2016 and Trump’s potential nominee list with it, Trump could use the frozen nomination of a crowd-pleaser such as Amy Coney Barrett to galvanize his voter base but not jeopardize the only seats to make up the bulwark against a potential Vice President Kamala Harris.
The next two months could prove the nation’s most ugly in generations. If either party decides the question of Ginsburg’s replacement is a prisoner’s dilemma, the civil unrest of the last six months will look like child’s play. But Trump has one option that could both preserve what remains of our social fabric and work to his political benefit, and more importantly, that of the party.
