FOUR TIMES the Media Pushed Court-Packing In Favor of Democrats

Justice Anthony Kennedy made waves late last month when he announced he'd be retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court — immediately launching a flurry of anti-Trump outrage from the leftist media, who feared that a Republican president would get another shot at nominating a SCOTUS justice.

There's just one problem: all that outrage is wildly hypocritical.

So, with President Trump set to announce his nominee for the vacant Supreme Court seat Monday night at 9 p.m., let’s look back at four times the liberal media has called for Democrats to pack the Supreme Court.

1. The Outline

In an article written on June 28 titled, “There is One Way to Fix the Supreme Court,” author “@kept_simple,” who appears to write under an anonymous Twitter account, argues that conservatives are abusing the Supreme Court to support their supposed oppressive agenda, and the only way for progressives to stop the bad guys is to block Trump’s nominees and add Supreme Court Justices when back in power.

The author starts the article by writing, “For anyone with a soul, the Supreme Court’s most recent term has been gut-wrenching,” instantly suggesting that conservatives and constitutional originalist justices are immoral. This demonizing tactic of declaring the opposition as evil is a dangerous way to justify any means of resistance.

2. Jacobin

Todd N. Tucker makes a similar argument in his article “In Defense of Court Packing,” also published on June 28, where he focuses on the necessity of radical progressivism in America, arguing that the conservatives’ resistance to it must be bulldozed over for the sake of democracy.

“A thoughtful court-packing proposal would ensure that the Court more carefully reflects the mores of the time, rather than shackling democracy to the weight of the past. With inequality and human rights abuses spiraling upward and justices making it all worse, the time to begin mainstreaming an enlarged Court is now,” Tucker writes in closing.

Here, the go-to progressive talking point is evident. To progressives, the Constitution is outdated and the U.S. is living in a past of oppression. Therefore, the Constitution should be disregarded in favor of progressivism; an ideology contrary to the classical liberalism of the Founders.

3. The New Republic

In an article titled, “Democrats: Prepare to Pack the Supreme Court,” author Scott Lemieux argues that “it would be very unwise for Democrats to rule anything out” because the Republicans may begin an “anti-Democratic rearguard on the Supreme Court.” Despite its desperate tone, the article was actually written in May, prior to Justice Kennedy’s retirement. One can only wonder how frantic the author is now.

4. Slate

Writer Ian Millhiser recently tweeted his article from 2015, titled, “In Defense of Court-Packing,” where he details the history of court packing in the U.S. that the previous three listed articles only briefly explain.

Millhiser summarizes the history of how FDR attempted and failed to add six justices to the Supreme Court in 1937 to push through his New Deal.

Although, the U.S. successfully added or subtracted justices from the court seven times — all of which were in the 19th Century.

Millhiser references how at a time, Obama was fighting against the Supreme Court regarding Obamacare, arguing that someone will eventually add judges to the Supreme Court, inferring Democrats should be the ones to do so.

Court packing is a radical abuse of power that hasn’t been tried in the U.S. since the 19th Century — for good reason. The Supreme Court should never be considered a partisan institution, but rather a protector of the Constitution. If Republicans ever packed the Supreme Court, the media would rightfully outrage -- but so long as it benefits the Democrats, the idea of court packing is fascinating and even necessary. Oh well for principle over party.