Merrick Garland. He’s easily qualified to be a Supreme Court justice and yet, he’s been locked in a stalemate ever since President Obama announced his nomination.Now, this struggle has long been in the news, but yesterday Senator Charles E. Grassley (Republican, Iowa) had breakfast with Garland and essentially confirmed that he will never receive so much as a hearing.
Republicans are currently standing on some ceremonious delusion that an outgoing POTUS shouldn’t be able to pick a Supreme Court replacement, despite the fact that it is in the president’s job description to do that.
I don’t think it’s any secret that I am currently very disgusted with the Republicans that are in our government. I am even more disgusted that they would allow this to go so far not only because Garland is an obviously qualified candidate to be on the SCOTUS, but let’s remember that the current Republican frontrunner is Donald Trump.
Much of the Republican establishment is praying that Trump isn’t there nominee. True, candidates like Chris Christie and Ben Carson have come out in favor of Trump. But, most establishment Republicans – the ones who will look like fools having to approve a Trump-nominated candidate – don’t want the Donald.
I actually don’t think that Trump will win and won’t have the opportunity to nominate any justices or cabinet members or anything. So, what are Republicans going to do when Hillary Clinton is elected to office and she wants to appoint someone?
The answer: the same stupid, ticky-tack stuff they’re doing right now. That’s right. At the moment they’re standing on some made up principal that an outgoing president shouldn’t nominate a justice, but you know that when these sore/backwards/petty losers are faced with any nominee that Clinton wants to put forward, they’re going to pound their fists, say words like “Benghazi” and pretend that a party that has allowed a hateful, spiteful bigot to run roughshod over the election has some sort of moral high ground.
I find this group of Republicans utterly useless and counterproductive. One of their favorite talking points is how divisive Obama has been as a leader. They throw around phrases like 
“class warfare” or “socialism” to scare the dumbest among us into thinking that Obama is some sinister character.
They are the ones creating the divide. Merrick Garland is qualified to sit on that bench – more qualified and in touch with humanity than Scalia was – and I don’t understand why a judge that even George H.W. Bush (you know, the smart one) gave a seal of approval to would run into problems with the Republican base.
I think the answer doesn’t stand with Garland and is rather this Republican group’s problems with Obama. I don’t know if it’s a race thing. I don’t know if it’s the fact that the Republicans burned their own house down with eight disastrous years with President George W. Bush (you know, the dumb one). I don’t know if it’s that they have the appearance of war hawks.
They have no notable achievements so maybe they feel the need to rob the other guys of their achievements to look like they at least stand on equal footing. Garland will likely never receive the hearing that he deserves. The only people who lose in this battle are the citizens of the United States.
We are left with an incomplete SCOTUS, a government mired in stalemate and one half of our two-party system is consistently refusing to move this country forward. I used to really understand why people were Republicans. Really. I even understand that some people are Republicans just by proxy of supporting fiscal conservatism. I get that.
But, honestly I don’t understand people who can stand by the Republican Party given how terrible a party they’ve become. Let me be abundantly clear: I am in many ways disappointed with Democrats as well. They’ve blown many opportunities in the last eight years and I’m also not exactly ecstatic with the two candidates that they’ve put forward this election cycle either.
But, Clinton and Sanders are people who I actually wouldn’t be ashamed to have represent our country in front of the U.N. and I also don’t think that they would allow our government to be weighed down and incomplete simply because a president is trying to do their job. Republicans often talk about their hatred of government. I think it’s about high time then that they got out of government.
If you can’t be part of the solution or even have conversations about a solution, then you are officially part of a problem. I want you all to do something for me: if you consider yourself a Republican, ask yourself why.
Really think about the way that this party behaves and decide whether you want to be associated with a group of politicians who seem to hate the government that they report to, have nothing but contempt for their coworkers and seemingly the citizens that they allegedly serve. I hope they’re all voted out in November.
Brian Laughran
Editor-in-Chief
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