So much for the principle of “When they go low, we go high,” espoused by then-First Lady Michelle Obama to rousing cheers at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Apparently the Democrats’ real credo is “When they go low, we go high — unless the circumstances necessitate going even lower.”
That was the prescription offered Tuesday by former Maryland congresswoman and current MSNBC analyst Donna Edwards regarding President Donald Trump’s opportunity to appoint his second Supreme Court justice.
The question posed to her by host Nicole Wallace began with the bogus premise that the upcoming vacancy on the high court during an election year is parallel to the one that arose in 2016 under Barack Obama. Democrats conveniently avoid noting the differences: The death of Antonin Scalia and subsequent appointment of Merrick Garland occurred in Obama’s final year in office, in addition to which the current year is not a presidential election year.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Fittingly, Edwards’s answer to what Democrats should do was non-constructive, bordering on bellicose:
I’ve said that it’s time for Democrats to “throw down.” I mean by that we have been playing by the rule book and that Donald Trump and the Republicans have been playing by “street rules.” We need to play by street rules.
When asked what that would “look like,” Edwards went on to explain that it means putting “public pressure” on moderate Republican senators like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. (Collins, who announced yesterday that she won’t vote for a SCOTUS nominee who doesn’t support Roe V. Wade, probably won’t require that much arm-twisting.)
https://twitter.com/WiredSources/status/1012111826648170496
Edwards’s advice wasn’t quite as extreme as that tendered by Maxine Waters, but it still a “ends justifying the means” argument, which Democrats have long maintained is no their M.O.
