50 – 49

Well, Susan Collins announced today that she’ll not vote for a Justice who would repeal Roe v. Wade. Good for her. A primary problem is that any nominee will simply lie about it with no remorse, compunction, or any prospect of accountability for lying.

To be a member of the Federalist Society from whom the entire pool of candidates is chosen, you must explicitly endorse the proposition that Roe was improperly decided and should be reversed.

Period.

A big secondary problem is that just Sue doesn’t make the nut. On a 51 to 49 vote the nominee is confirmed, at least one other Republican will be required. Some put their hope in Murkowski and she has little reason to do Trump’s bidding. He opposed her in the Primary which she lost and had to win as a write-in. She don’t owe him nothin’.

On the other hand it’s a serious mistake to think Trump’s fecklessness and faux Republicanism is the Party Policy. Trump doesn’t care about this either way, Republicans do.

For 40 years or more they have had a program to seize control of the Supreme Court and overturn its “liberal” decisions, chief among which is Roe. Don’t delude yourself that Roe is everything they want either, they’re coming after Griswold v. Connecticut (medical privacy, contraception) and Brown v. Board of Education (integration) too.

Expecting anyone who’d made that a core political belief to change their minds now, with victory in grasp, is a big ask.

Unless they’re the venal hypocritical fools we’ve come to know.