What are those stakes, exactly, one might ask, if they’ve been living under a rock? Here’s a refresher: For starters, the GOP would undoubtedly block basically everything Joe Biden wants to get done in the second half of his first term. That this would happen should come as a shock to no one, given (1) the party’s long history of obstructing things that could actually help Americans and (2) Mitch McConnell’s vow to do exactly that even after he’d been relegated to Senate minority leader. (In May 2021, McConnell declared, “One hundred percent of my focus is standing up to this administration.”) Naturally, the blockage would include judicial nominations, including in the unlikely event a Supreme Court vacancy arises, given McConnell’s penchant for making up rules about when a president is allowed to fill a seat on the Supreme Court.
