Should Democrats Go to the Mattresses Over the Supreme Court?

Evan Golub via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

I’m in a quandary. Last night I suggested that Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court would energize progressives and produce a huge turnout in the November midterms. My thinking behind this was:

  • On the conservative side, the replacement would already be in place by Election Day, so it wouldn’t have any special effect on Republican turnout.
  • On the progressive side, Kennedy’s replacement would put Roe v. Wade in such obvious danger that Democrats would flock to the polls.

Obviously I could be wrong about either of these things, but put that aside for now. It turns out that the controversy of the moment among progressives is whether Democrats should put up a titanic fight to prevent a replacement from being confirmed. My assumption had been that Dems would fight, but mostly pro forma since they have no feasible way of stopping Republicans. They could try to persuade a couple of centrist Republicans to vote against anyone who might overturn Roe, but that’s pretty unlikely—and the other ideas I’ve heard go downhill from there. Republicans are going to win this fight, and the Democratic leadership knows it.

Like I said, that was my assumption behind all this. But what if Democrats do go to the mattresses? Block the doorways, disrupt quorum calls, put gum in all the locks and sugar in the gas tanks. Whatever. If that’s the case, then it becomes an all-out war and conservatives will be at least as energized as progressives. Maybe more so. That means a pro forma fight is probably the best bet.

On the other hand, the midterms are all about the Resistance. They’re all about the fight, showing a spine, and turning out the base. Wouldn’t a pro forma fight deflate all that? If Dems don’t blow up a few things, the base might get disgusted and just stay home. That means we need to declare war.

This alternative hadn’t really occurred to me. Rationally, a pro forma fight is almost certainly the best bet. But politics isn’t about rationality. It’s about inspiring your own side and deflating the other side. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a single strategy which accomplishes that here. Any ideas?

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate