The first test of the “total resistance” strategy against Trump will come with the confirmation battle over Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court. Left-wing groups are urging Democrats to use any and all means to block Gorsuch. That includes browbeating Democratic senators who want a more normal confirmation process. After Chris Coons, a Democratic senator of Delaware, said he believed that Gorsuch deserved a hearing and an eventual vote, the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee e-mailed its 1 million members, urging them to rebuke him.
“There is zero appetite among the public for weakness from Democratic politicians,” Stephanie Taylor, the committee’s co-founder, told U.S. News and World Report.
But claims that the public wants a filibuster of Gorsuch are preposterous. In a CNN poll released today, respondents backed Gorsuch’s confirmation by a margin of 49 percent to 36 percent. Sensible Senate Democrats know that if they filibuster Gorsuch, the likely result will be that Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell, will simply scrap the filibuster and leave Democrats with even less power to influence the fate the next nominee, which would seriously tilt the balance of the court rightward.
But for now, such practical considerations are being pushed aside in the rush to portray Donald Trump as some kind of “fascist in chief” occupying the White House. In California, Democratic assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer of Los Angeles has predicted that the anti-Trump resistance will be “a looming, long, ferocious and hard-fought legal war with bloodshed stretching from the Golden State to Washington D.C.”
If Democrats believe that this kind of hyper-partisan opposition will carry the day or appeal to moderates, I say, “Good luck with that.” Donald Trump has a knack for alienating many voters and saying stupid things. But his biggest asset may be that his over-the-top adversaries are even better at painting themselves in negative terms.
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