I get along with everybody.
To me, your argument is barely different from the guy who basically said “but the Democrats really are bad” and then presented a totally made up platform with a bunch of fictitious planks to justify his emotional fervor; or the guy getting all worked up about how I’m not mad that the Democrats
would hypothetically do the same thing if the roles were reversed.
These are all alternative realities constructed to preserve your respective peace of mind. Yours is far more grounded in reality than the others, but it still can only be maintained with a totally one-sided view of the facts.
It can’t be reconciled with the overwhelming and bipartisan confirmations of Kennedy and Roberts. Roberts in particular was a break in the chain of events, as your presented it.
And I’m not saying that confirmations have not been increasingly contentious for almost half a century, I don’t think anybody would say that, but it’s never been just blatant rank partisanship, until now. The opposition to Bork, Thomas, Miers, and Alito was bipartisan to varying degrees.
Also, what I remember of your characterization of Sotomayor’s confirmation is off. Her confirmation was every bit as contentious as Gorsuch, which is to say both were roughly on par with Alito. Remember “wise Latina woman?” That was back when I was still listening to Limbaugh; I remember he harped about that for weeks. Things were heated but roughly symmetrical, with both sides observing some measure of decorum, until Garland.
Since then (and before then on other matters) there has been an asymmetry to the naked partisanship in the Senate, and it starts with Mitch McConnel. That’s just reality. And the reason for it is obvious from recent electoral history and from this forum: a majority of Republican voters like it, the rest will justify it.
Meanwhile, Democrats just voted overwhelmingly to nominate a guy who campaigned on a reconciliation platform and leaned in to his record of bridging the aisle to explain how he would heal the partisan dysfunction.
