In an election year that conservatives are expected to sweep, Manchin/Sinema voters could be upset if their representatives lose them the ability to seat a justice of their choice. It is my belief that Obama is the only nominee that would have widely bipartisan unconditional support.
The last decade has destroyed my sense of irony, so I really don’t known if you’re being serious or not.
Sure, Obama might get 50+% support from voters, but it’s not a popular vote and no single Republican Senator would vote to confirm him, McConnell would make sure of it. He’s made a career out of trying to stop Obama.
Plus, Obama’s entire presidency would be used to show political bias. With an unknown judge name, there’s a slight veneer of impartiality. With a past President, there isn’t.
For sure, but did you see Democrats do anything different with Trump's agenda? They fought him just as hard or harder than Republicans fought Obama. Nobody gets a pass in my opinion.
I believe that the difference is that some in the Republican party—McConnell, for example—explicitly advanced the position "whatever Obama does, we will oppose." Whereas I am aware of no mainstream Democratic politician who stated a blanket opposition to anything Trump might do; it just happened that they very often disagreed with him on the things he did do.
I think bad-faith accusations come from opposing a person's positions ad hominem, because of who holds them, rather than from simply disagreeing, even consistently, passionately, and vociferously, with many or all of the positions that a person happens to hold.
They literally tried to impeach him before he took office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_Donald_Trum...
Notice that the Wikipedia article you cite itself cites two sources for the claim of talk of impeachment before election, and, as far as I can tell, neither of these quotes any Democrat by name as calling for impeachment before he held office. This is, again, a far cry from McConnell, who very much went on record from his leadership position as opposing anything Obama might do; and, for that matter, from the Republicans who, on the record, called for Biden's impeachment before he held office.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/donald-trump...
(I find on re-reading that my parent post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30095537 said "neither of these quotes any Democrat by name as calling for impeachment before he held office." I meant, though I see now that I did not say, any mainstream Democratic politician. I apologise if this seems to be moving the goalposts; I can say only that I misspoke, rather than trying intentionally to change the debate mid-stream. I will certainly grant that there were everyday Democratic voters who would have been happy to see Trump impeached before office, and who maybe even explicitly called for it, but I think such on-the-street voices cannot reasonably be compared in prominence or impact to McConnell's actions.)
Did you miss the entire Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory that they promulgated during his entire time in office? I happen to think Trump was an ineffective President who repeatedly shot himself in the foot, but it's delusional to act like the Democrats didn't fight him from day one on literally everything.
I think it is impossible after having lived through the Obama administration to think that Obama would get bipartisan support. (EDIT: It turns out @meepmorp said the same more pithily: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30088921#30089293 .)
For that matter, obstructionist opposition is not about the nominee; it's believable that the GOP would have refused to seat Kavanaugh or ACB, if they had been nominated by Obama.
Amy Coney Barrett is 49, for example.
100%. Ever since O'Connor they've been leaning heavily toward younger nominees.