If you think there is a chance Senate Republicans will hold hearings on anyone President Obama nominates to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, you can forget it.
Or, if they should hold hearings, that Republican members of the Judiciary Committee will be honest and fair.
What happened last November in the gubernatorial race in Kentucky is all the explanation we need to understand why.
The Republican candidate, Matt Bevins, ran on a platform that pledged he would cut Medicaid and close down the state run health insurance exchange called Kynect.
That alone would make you think the people who live in the poorest counties in Kentucky and benefit the most from Medicaid and Kynect voted against Bevins.
They didn’t. In fact, 70% of them voted for him.
One woman who needed Medicaid because of regular blood tests and doctor visits for her hyperthyroidism and was at risk of losing coverage if Bevins won voted for him anyway.
“I’m just a die-hard Republican,” she said. She was not alone.
According to a study done by Andrea Malji, a student at Transylvania University, the larger the percentage of people on Medicaid in a given county, the larger the vote was for Bevins.
At the same time, Malji also found that Bevins didn’t win because a majority of voters in those poor counties were all “die hard Republicans.” The real reason was because they were voting against gay marriage, abortion, and Obamacare.
But here’s the illogic of their vote. The only issue Bevins could do anything about as governor was to undo Kynet, an arm of Obamacare, but that was the very thing these voters needed the most. That didn’t matter. They voted for him anyway.
Their vote made no sense, of course, which is precisely the point I am underscoring.
Reason and logic had no influence on the way the residents of Kentucky’s poorest counties voted.
What mattered were their long held religious and political beliefs that trumped reason and logic. In other words their vote was ideological.
This is what has happened to enough Republican voters that extremists now run the Party.
It also explains why Senate Republicans have no worry about losing their base support by taking the extreme position of refusing to honestly consider anyone President Obama might nominate for the Supreme Court Justice.
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein tried to tell the nation that ideology was taking over the Republican Party when they wrote their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.
In the book Ornstein, a staunch conservative who founded the conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, supports the conclusion that members of his own political party bear sole responsibility for the current stalemate in Washington.
Sadly not many Americans were ready to hear what they were saying, and certainly very few Republicans. In the face of voter apathy, in the four years since the book was published things have only gotten worse.
So this is the state of Republican politics, and is why President Obama will not appoint the next Supreme Court Justice.
Like it or not, and I don’t, that appointment will be made by the person who is elected next November.
If that is not a clarion call for all non-extremist Americans to go to the polls, I don’t know what is.
Once again truth hits us between the eyes. We hold the power to decide the kind of person we want to replace Justice Scalia.
It comes down to whether or not a majority of sensible voters will use that power to do what’s right for the sake of the nation.
We shall see.
linnposts.com 
Jan,
Your analysis of this sorry state of affairs is right on target. The Kentucky situation, as you nicely explain it, is powerful evidence of Republican disingenuousness that preys on the ill-informed and the “ignorant” who vote against their own well-being. Such politicians are despicable. That poor woman who called herself a “die-hard Republican” most certainly did not realize the irony of the adjective she chose. Very sad!
Bill, education, the focus on your own recent Blog at gracestreetexit. com, is one key to changing the situation, but more is going on than a lack of education. I am convinced that ideological purity among Republicans is rooted in the influence of the Christian Right and its “my way or the highway” attitude. Religious purity mixed with politics is a deadly combination, and that is a major factor in the threat to our democracy. But that’s a subject for a future blog.
I just might remind you of 2007 19 months before George W Bush was to leave office –
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/schumer-in-2007-dont-confirm-any-bush-supreme-court-nominee/article/2583283
Steve, the primary issue is not the Supreme Court obstructionism. It is Republican extremism that has grinded our government to a halt. Alone the Republican response to Scalia’s replacement would be “politics.” But it is part of a larger pattern described by Mitch McConnell when Obama was first elected – to refuse to cooperate on anything and everything. Not seeing the whole is why you continue to support the Republican assault on our form of government.
Obama REFUSED to ever look at Republican options to Obamacare legislation. He set the tone early on–took an extreme position; the result is an equal and opposite response from the other side. Too bad. No “coming together” ever. The buck stops in the oval office, where Harry Truman left the sign.
Obama held a two day conference with Republicans on healthcare reform/Obamacare that was televised. Apparently you didn’t watch it. Ignoring facts or not knowing about them weakens your argument. Obama tried in every way possible his first term to work with Republicans and they refused, period. You cannot blame him when their position was and is do it our way and we will work with you, don’t and we won’t.
Do not agree with you one bit. A “two day conference” ?? Where he didn’t pay any attention to objections?? His way, all the way?? Take it or leave it?? That 2,000 page document was not changed one iota to reflect any cooperation at all. And then the “blame game”??? If there had been a smidgen of respect for Republican opinion, there would have been SOME Republican votes for it; but there was no respect given by Obama. He thought that if he invited a few Republicans over for a barbecue to “be nice to get cooperation” that it meant “you all come over here and vote MY way!” The very first day in office, Nancy Pelosi spoke volumes when the whole cabinet was around the table for reporters and she smirked “Elections have consequences; we won!” What an attitude that showed!
Your comment is simply an ideological argument. The Republicans wanted to expand insurance options across state lines. That was all they proposed that to change the broken system at the time. No exclusion of pre-existing conditions, no coverage for adult children still at home on parent’s policy, no ban of dropping someone insured when they got sick, no expansion of Medicaid. The system at the time was driving people into bankruptcy that is no longer happening at the rate it was. Republicans opposed all of these proposals. Your idea of not compromising is to accept Republican ideas that do not help anyone but people of means. Since Obama was elected Republicans have had the “our way or no way” attitude that already shut down the government once. If you think that is compromise, there is no point to continuing this discussion.
You’ve had you say. Move on.
They also wanted health savings accounts and other things you didn’t mention. I do believe that pre-existing conditions, etc., are considered bi-partisan. If Obama would have opted to go with across-state-lines and other Rep. suggestions, I believe he would have gotten cooperation. However, he wanted to have “the last word.”
The refusal to cooperate doesn’t get any more obvious that when Mitch McConnell said in January of 2009 that Republicans would refuse him any legislative victories. Former Republican Senator summed it up, “If he was for it, “we had to be against it.”
I said in my blog that Republican voters ignore reason and logic – and facts – when they vote to keep these people in office. You keep proving my point.
As things currently stand in the nominating process for both parties, remember that not EVERY Republican is ultra conservative, so don’t paint with a narrow brush that puts all of them in your gun-sight (oops–no guns–consider that just an “illustration”). Consider that 15 candidates started with many credentials, not just loudmouth and “main right combatant.” LOGICALLY, consider the alternatives: one who logically needs to be indicted (per the facts), and another whose lefty legislation will never pass first base. The alternative party needs to find an alternative candidate to those two!
Since my blog was about Senate Republicans not worrying about being held accountable for their obstructionism, and NOT about the presidential race, you have switched the subject, underscoring the fact that you need to move on.
Somewhere on line, I caught what ought to be called the saying of the year:
“A child who reads will one day be an adult who thinks”.
Powerful things, good books…
Excellent quote and reflection on it, Nigel. Thanks.