A Deal with the Devil

If there actually were any real “Christians” in the Republican electorate, they abandoned their religious convictions to vote for Trump, an amoral con-man with no religious convictions at all. Everyone knew what he was, but they threw away all the “family values” and other holier-than-thou rhetoric and litmus tests that were applied to all presidential candidates over the last several decades.

Many have said all along that what was really at stake in this election was the ability to nominate Supreme Court justices, particularly for the seat left open by the death of Anton Scalia a year ago. Since that time, the Republicans have behaved in an unconscionable way, refusing to even meet with a highly qualified middle-of-the-road Obama nominee, Merrick Garland.  The ninth seat has remained vacant, leaving the court split 4-4 on ideological issues. Of course, there should be no “ideological” issues at all for the SCOTUS, but rather only legal issues. But we’re way past that now.

And the reason the Supreme Court pick is so important to them is that their fondest hope in the world, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, is now possible. This was their deal with the Devil: we’ll elect even the preposterously unqualified and manifestly dangerous Donald J. Trump if it means the end of legal abortion in our country.

In selecting Neil Gorsuch for the court, the man-baby has delivered. Gorsuch will be approved even though the current rules require 60 senators to vote for the approval and there are only 52 guaranteed republican votes. Democrats would be well justified in resisting this after l’affaire Garland, and perhaps they will. There are ten among them who must run for re-election in states won by Trump, so their calculus is a bit different. Maybe they’ll give in.

But it doesn’t matter – even if the Republicans can’t convince eight democratic senators to vote with them, they will simply change the rules to require a simple 51-vote majority for confirmation. It’s who they are. It’s what they do.

The first two weeks of Trump have been a vertigo-inducing amusement park ride, but without the amusement. I can’t imagine anyone in congress looking forward to four, or perhaps even eight more years of it.

At this point, I would gladly accept a different deal with the Devil: we give you the SCOTUS and the overturning of Roe. You give us impeachment for Trump’s blatant conflicts of interest. We’ll have President Pence for four years, and a return to some sense of normalcy.

Whaddya say? Deal?