I am reminded of Black Widow’s quote in “Avengers” in the New York City atack “None of this will make a damn bit of difference if we don’t close that portal”. Meaning adding 4 or 6 justices to the Supreme Court won’t change a thing if Republicans re-gain power and do the same themselves. SCOTUS will have 89 seats at this rate. Harry Reid blew up SCOTUS nominations when he reduced the vote to simple majority, and the Republican shenanigans with Garland and Barrett were payback. Reid’s move was payback for McConnell’s obstruction, and on and on. Each side will pick it’s “you started it” moment (Clinton impeachment vs Bork nom failing as two examples).
Republicans do what they do because they know that even with a popular minority, they can game their numbers in the Senate to keep hold of power. And the electoral college, gerrymandering, and voter suppression tactics all assist in keeping that power. And they don’t worry about alienating their opponents because their base will seemingly follow them to the gates of hell and not waver, although Trump is testing that theory like rarely before. Democrats can’t seem to align under one common liberal banner, so we see in-fighting which splinters the party and allows the other side to slide through. This may explain Colin’s “I don’t support Trump and am not defending him, but....” defence of Trump. He matches the profile of a Bernie Bro, who would burn down the party of his choice out of spite because his guy did not get in, versus Republicans who hold their nose at Trump so long as their party pushes the conservative agenda of pro-life, religious freedom, low taxes, heavy capitalism, and save our guns, and all vote in unison.
So how to beat this? Don’t just expand the Supreme Court, set expansion limits so Republicans can’t double down when they take back power. Set term limits, or set limits on how many appointments can occur in one Presidential term.
But beyond that, play the system to your advantage like Repubs did. There was nothing illegal about what McConnell and the Senate did with Garland, Kavanagh and Barrett. Sure they could have allowed the Garland hearing and then voted him down anyway, so the optics of denying a hearing then and ramming one through now highlights the hypocrisy, but again they don’t care. So where do Dems have the advantage? If you believe polls, the simple majority of Americans lean Liberal. So get rid of the Electoral College and have a simple majority vote. Expand the House seats to reflect the change in US population and allow one rep for every 500,000 Americans, rounding up or down by 1 for those in between the threshold. And change the Senate with proportional representation, or limit its function so that it does not hold the balance of power on so much with so few members (California has almost 40,000,000 people and 2 senators, while the 14 least populous reliably Republican states have the same population but 28 senators). Legislate out gerrymandering and make voting as easy and accessible as possible. As Trump himself said in an interview, if every person was allowed to vote, no Republican would ever hold office again. So make that happen. Change the system for good so it just won’t flip-flop again. Too harsh? Well, if the people will it to be so, they will change who gets elected. But right now where 35% of the population controls 52% of the senate votes, and the party that has lost the popular vote in 6 of the 7 last elections has nominated 15 of the 19 last SCOTUS justices, the system as it is looks pretty broken to the majority of America. Clean house, there may not be another time to pull this off. And for those who say why should Canadians care what the US does, just think of the global impact of deregulation of US companies on environmental issues for but one example of the answer as to why we should care.