Democrats to give Trump Cabinet picks the Garland treatment

[branford]

69. Garland is now a non-entity regardless of whether his treatment was fair.

The Republicans took a huge calculated political risk by not holding hearings before the election, and their strategy apparently worked. Complaining about Garland serves little to no useful purpose.

The Garland nomination expires at the end of this Congress. As Trump will certainly not renominate him, there will be no confirmation hearings. More importantly, whether in this Congress or the next in 2017, Garland had no chance of mustering 51 votes to be confirmed.

The primary issue now it trying to get the best possible Supreme Court justice possible in a Trump administration since this is the one area where the Senate filibuster remains and some Republicans are not inclined to eliminate.

Whether you or I like it or not, Trump will be the president in a matter of weeks, Congress is firmly in the hands of the Republicans, and we now have to live with the fact that in an effort to assist President Obama, Harry Reid nuked most protections afforded the Senate minority. It isn't pretty, but this is now our reality.

I'm not suggesting we "reward" Republicans or any other such nonsense. However, unless and until we start winning more elections, we need to accept we're living in a new political reality where we have little leverage and few options, and must therefore carefully choose our battles and act with strategic forethought and discretion. We are where the Republicans were in 2008. They did not wield any real influence until they took back the House in 2010. We need to learn from our failures and the successful strategies of our adversaries.