In today’s Office Hours, I want us to address a dilemma that’s been growing for years — but with Justice Alito’s leaked opinion has reached a point where it can no longer be ignored. The Republican Party will do anything to win, even if that requires jettisoning democracy. Democrats, Independents, and all others still have scruples, which puts us at a disadvantage.

Republicans won their anti-abortion victory by shunning essentially all other principles. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Republicans used every tool available (including the filibuster) to block Obama appointments to the federal judiciary, leaving over 100 vacant federal bench seats for the next Republican president to fill with anti-abortion judges. But when the filibuster jeopardized an anti-abortion Republican appointee to a (stolen) Supreme Court seat, they had no qualms about changing the filibuster rules.

To steal that seat, they invented an imaginary rule that Supreme Court nominees shouldn't be confirmed in an election year so as to block President Obama's nominee from even having a hearing. But when an opportunity arose for Trump to appoint another anti-abortion justice in the actual midst of an election, with early votes already cast, they abandoned that rule as easily as they invented it.

So-called Christian conservatives, who claim to value the "sanctity of marriage," willingly voted for a twice-divorced man who boasted about cheating on his wives and sexually assaulting women because he promised to appoint anti-abortion judges.

Although Republican presidents (Trump most explicitly) have promised to appoint only judges who would overturn Roe, their nominees pretended during their hearings that they considered Roe a firmly established precedent.

So today’s Office Hours question: How is it possible to win political victories against a party that is so ruthlessly unprincipled — without resorting to tactics that are equally devoid of principle or fairness?

Please chime in. (I will, too.)

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Robert Reich

Office Hours: How can we fight an…

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