The Last Stand of the Insurgency

Conservative groups are lining up to get behind Majority Leader McConnell's stand to obstruct ANY nominee President Obama puts forward to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Hugh Hewitt echoes the sentiment in a column titled: No hearings. No votes.

The Supreme Court has inserted itself into every manner of controversy over the past 30 years, from abortion to guns to marriage and now immigration. It has assumed power never intended it by the Framers, but it is what it is and there is no going back. Thus who controls the court controls the meaning of the Constitution.

If there is anything worth fighting for it is the future of the Constitution, and thus Senate Republicans have no choice here. Those that disagree may as well stop campaigning, and they will certainly stop getting campaign support from me. Their Democratic opponents will trounce them if even a small fraction of the GOP base is betrayed on this huge issue.

Conservatives really are facing the prospect of a double whammy. They are likely to continue to control the House next year and have successfully halted anything much happening in the Senate via use of the filibuster. But now, not only is the presidency up for grabs again in November, but a Democratic appointment to the Supreme Court will swing that institution away from their agenda. That is why Martin is right when he says that they'll fight it with everything they've got.

Notice that Hewitt mentioned abortion, guns, marriage and immigration when talking about the activity of the Supreme Court. If you add it voting rights and affirmative action, you pretty much have a summary of the cultural changes that are a threat to the Confederate world view Doug Muder wrote about.

The essence of the Confederate worldview is that the democratic process cannot legitimately change the established social order, and so all forms of legal and illegal resistance are justified when it tries…

The Confederate sees a divinely ordained way things are supposed to be, and defends it at all costs. No process, no matter how orderly or democratic, can justify fundamental change.

That "divinely ordained way things are supposed to be" includes white supremacy, control of women's reproductive choices, marriage between one man and one woman, and the elevation of gun rights over every other constitutional right.

But America is changing. And all of those things are threatened. That is what has conservatives so terrified and angry...to the point that people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz now lead the fight for the next Republican presidential nomination.

Over the next 12 months we will witness that fear and anger played out over the presidency and the future of the Supreme Court. Democrats need to be very aware of the stakes - because they are enormously high.