Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement announcement offers Republicans a real opportunity. No, not the opportunity to install yet another hard-right conservative on the bench. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell already can claim victory for the kinds of obstructionist and unfair manipulation that yielded the court’s current lopsided split favoring conservatives. Now is the moment for Republicans to make a move to save this badly divided nation from splitting even further.
Would it be asking too much for Senate Republicans to let President Joe Biden exercise the same prerogative granted for decades to his predecessors to appoint his choice to the high court? It would mean, just once, that McConnell & Co. stifle the penchant to seize every opportunity to deepen divisions and exploit every issue for maximum political gain.
At some point, even McConnell must recognize the damage these divisive tactics are inflicting on the nation. The growing trend toward tribalism is fomenting chaos and violence. At times over the past year, America has looked more like a nation barreling toward civil war than a democracy founded on principles of national unity and political compromise.
