I'm not sure if I am kidding here.
Just in case nobody has already thought of this, I thought I should mention that it might well be in the country's interest to let the Republicans just appoint someone. The mistake here was already made -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg (bless her heart, may she rest in peace) should have stepped back in the middle of Obama's second term, and she could have been properly replaced. She could have died any time during Trump's term and we would have had this problem. As a survivor of multiple cancers, she could have seen this coming. Of course, she was hoping for a democratic president in 2016, but like I said, this is a decision she had to make in 2014, where there was no way of predicting the election.
So we're in a very interesting situation now. If everyone agrees NOT to let Trump appoint someone, then that will almost CERTAINLY make every single election this November that much closer. Up until RBG's death, Democrats were almost certain to win not just the presidency but the Senate as well. That's not because anybody really likes Biden or any of the other Democrats. It's because most sensible people realize that Trump is horrible and dangerous for this country during challenging times in which the country can ill afford to have a dangerous and horrible leader. Electing Trump (either by voting for him over Hillary or by not voting at all) might have seemed to some people like a good joke on the political establishment at the time, but most of those people will not want the joke to go on for a second term.
I'm pretty sure the polls have been underestimating what was going to happen. This year, lots of people who would otherwise sit the election out will find a way to vote, in order to vote AGAINST Trump.
But if RBG's vacancy is not filled BEFORE the election a whole different set of people will be mobilized -- single issue voters who care more about having a right-leaning Supreme Court than how the country is governed. I'm not sure who that is exactly, but it includes just about every single right-to-lifer, and that's just a start.
To put it in simple terms -- everyone on the "left" -- and then some -- has already been mobilized, on the basis of Trump himself. Up until now, there has not been any countervailing "cause" to mobilize people from the right. A vacant Supreme Court seat will do that, and it could well neutralize the anti-Trump bump.
Biden might win anyway, but having that seat vacant will almost certainly make it a much closer race than it otherwise would have been. And again, many of the other races where Democrats had hopes of unseating Republican senators could go the other way too.
The question right now is whether the country can really take that risk.
I honestly don't know the answer. When the democratic party strategists figure this out, they will have a difficult choice to make -- allow the Supreme Court to go 6-3 conservative and possibly overrule Roe v. Wade, or be all the more certain to win the presidency plus some Senate seats.
Of course they might have already realized this, and just aren't saying it. They are just trying to figure out how to step aside and let the Republicans have their way without making it look like they didn't put up a fight to save Roe v. Wade.
And perhaps if it does happen, the next administration will pack the Court to blunt those extra votes. Or else hold a constitutional convention and really sort things out.
