Supreme Court Vacancy: David French, George Will, Jonah Goldberg’s Arguments against Confirming Trump Nominee Don’t Hold Up

Some of the Right’s leading thinkers, people I hold in the highest esteem, say circumstances are so unusual right now that the president and the Senate should do something other than what they ordinarily would do when a Supreme Court vacancy occurs: nominate and consider a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When Jonah Goldberg, David French, and (especially) George Will talk, I listen. All three are in agreement that the Republicans should give the Democrats a fighting shot to derail President Trump’s nominee. What they are calling for sounds to me like entering the bottom of the ninth with a four-run lead and intentionally walking the first three batters to even out the odds.

The Republicans have the authority to seat Trump’s nominee. French calls this state of affairs “Machiavellian simplicity,” Will calls it the “cold logic of formal powers,” and Goldberg calls it “the doctrine of ‘do whatever you can get away with.’” I call it continuing with the way things have always been done. Twenty-nine times in American history there’s been a SCOTUS vacancy in an election year, and 29 times the president has nominated someone to fill it. Senators usually reject those nominees if the Senate and White House are controlled by different parties, as was the case in 2016, and nearly always confirm them if the two are controlled by the same party.

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Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

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Some of the Right’s leading thinkers, people I hold in the highest esteem, say circumstances are so unusual right now that the president and the Senate should do something other than what they ordinarily would do when a Supreme Court vacancy occurs: nominate and consider a replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. When Jonah Goldberg, David French, and (especially) George Will talk, I listen. All three are in agreement that the Republicans should give the Democrats a fighting shot to derail President Trump’s nominee. What they are calling for sounds to me like entering the bottom of the ninth with a four-run lead and intentionally walking the first three batters to even out the odds.

The Republicans have the authority to seat Trump’s nominee. French calls this state of affairs “Machiavellian simplicity,” Will calls it the “cold logic of formal powers,” and Goldberg calls it “the doctrine of ‘do whatever you can get away with.’” I call it continuing with the way things have always been done. Twenty-nine times in American history there’s been a SCOTUS vacancy in an election year, and 29 times the president has nominated someone to fill it. Senators usually reject those nominees if the Senate and White House are controlled by different parties, as was the case in 2016, and nearly always confirm them if the two are controlled by the same party.