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[EricHiggin]

HylianSwordsman said:

If the female gets through easily, it will be because she didn't commit a crime, not because left-of-center people are sexist against men. I'd wager that most males on his list would also not have issues with crime, because these women aren't lying. There aren't women crawling out of the woodwork to come up with a bogus story, there are only women who sincerely believe what they're saying, and even Fox News defends Kavanaugh by saying Ford is confused, not lying. Not every one of those nominees is going to have trouble, because when Kavanaugh first was announced, everyone acted like it was a done deal and Dems had nothing. No one knew about his opinions on states' rights to prosecute someone with a federal pardon (current law says they can, Kavanaugh says they can't, so much for states' rights conservatives). No one knew he was against Presidents being investigated under any circumstances while in office (a position he conveniently took after being of the opposite opinion while Clinton was investigated). And no one knew about the sexual misconduct allegations. Not every nominee, in fact I'd wager almost no nominees, would have sexual misconduct allegations against them. The only one in modern history to have that besides Kavanaugh was Thomas, and he still was confirmed. And it's not like #MeToo is some purely partisan movement out to get all Republicans, I mean its first major takedown was one of the biggest Democratic donors, and it got several left-of-center news outlets too. With enough vetting (and the vetting so far suggested Amy Coney Barrett would have less issues) you could be sure that the only issues a nominee would have would be purely partisan ones like opinions on abortion, and there were several red state Dems that were prepared to vote for Kavanaugh in spite of his anti-abortion views before the other stuff came out, so any such nominee without these major criminal allegations or ethical conflicts would indeed sail through bipartisanly. The main reason I suggested Amy Coney Barrett specifically is because she was high up on the list and thus should already be pretty vetted, because multiple news outlets across the political spectrum said she'd be the easiest to confirm of his top three choices, and because the optics of a woman being the deciding vote on abortion issues undercuts pro-abortion arguments that a council of 5 men are deciding the future of women's bodies, as well as undercutting the idea that Republicans have a issue with women having power. She should be used now because of that, but also because if another vacancy opens up, it will likely be during Trump's second term, if he gets one, and unless Democrats get absolutely crushed in the Senate in this midterm (polls and experts suggest neither side will gain more than one or two seats), they'll likely retake it in 2020 when the map is as bad for Reps as it is now for Dems, and will be able to shoot down nominees for whatever reason they want at that point. It didn't hurt Republicans when they refused to let Obama seat his last nominee, so I don't see how it would hurt Democrats, especially when the court has been politicized to the degree it has and Trump keeps nominating far right judges. Neither their base nor swing voters will care, hell they'll cheer it on. In fact considering how unpopular Kavanaugh already is, if he is confirmed Dems will have an excuse to impeach him. No matter how you slice it, doing things this way is bad for the integrity of the Supreme Court and bad for Republicans. They should have gone with Amy, and their least worst option now would be if Kavanaugh resigns and Barrett gets nominated after Thursday, allowing them to confirm her during the lame duck session.

Like I said about firing up the right, unless her testimony is rock solid and highly convincing, and his is poor, the right is going to want Kavanaugh confirmed. If he backs out himself, it's going to piss the right off to no end, and will have them out is much larger numbers than they would otherwise for the mid terms. Trump could purpose a female at that point in time, assuming one that has been vetted and even better if it's one the Dems and left seemed ok with, because it will make it extremely hard for them to go against her and make it tough, without blatantly making themselves look like hypocrites. Trump and the Reps would still point out how the Dems went out of their way to smear the man and roll out the red carpet for the woman, even if that's not exactly how it plays out for her.

If her testimony is strong, and his weak, then the right is going to lose faith in the Reps, and if Trump then nominates one of the females that the left doesn't seem to have a problem with, it will make him look super weak like he's totally caving to the Dems and left, and that will not be good for the Reps. If Kavanaugh doesn't get confirmed due to her testimony, I would bet Trump puts forward another male candidate. I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but politically I can see why they would go that route.