Democrats are practiced at making threats, but in the coming fight over a United States Supreme Court nominee they've quickly come to more resemble the mob.
You know the mob? As in blackmail, (character) assassination and violence?
Since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said he would move forward with a confirmation process before the presidential election, in an effort to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democrats and their associates have promised all of the above.
"Let me be clear," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, the party's mob boss of sorts, "if Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year. Nothing is off the table."
Blackmail?
Among the threats that have been made since Ginsburg's death unless Republicans agree to let the next president make the pick, and if Democrats win a majority in the Senate:
* Abolish the filibuster, which is a Senate tactic used for nearly two centuries to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote; in essence, abolishing the filibuster would allow most anything to pass the body with a majority vote.
* Pack the court, which would add members to the Supreme Court to shift a perceived ideological balance in the court to the political side of the Congress and president doing the packing. Though Democrats have hinted at doing this throughout their presidential nomination process, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Massachusetts, brought it up after McConnell's decision, tweeting, "If he holds a vote in 2020, we pack the court in 2021. It's that simple."
* Impeach either the president, the justice (if confirmed) or the attorney general.
* Establish statehood for Washington, D.C., and/or Puerto Rico, which Democrats believe would give their side four additional senators and make it difficult for Republicans ever to win the presidency or a majority in the Senate.
(Character) assassination?
Federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of the women reportedly being considered by President Donald Trump as Ginsburg's replacement, was the subject of religious bigotry during her previous confirmation hearings by Democrats, including California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin. Harris, now the Democratic vice presidential nominee, even suggested those who adhere to Catholic doctrine may not be fit for office.
The last Trump Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, was faced with unproven allegations of sexual assault during his 2018 nomination hearing and had to endure sensational testimony ginned up by Democrats by several women who later said they'd made up the stories they told.
Violence?
Verified Twitter users, upon McConnell's statement last weekend that he would move forward with a nominee, suggested that arson might be among the tools in the left's toolbox.
"If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f-----g thing down," author Reza Aslan tweeted. A vote would be held, he later tweeted, "[o]ver our dead bodies, literally."
"F--- no," tweeted author Aaron Gouveia. "Burn it all down."
"Burn Congress down before letting Trump try to appoint anyone to SCOTUS," Canadian professor Emmett MacFarlane tweeted.
On Monday morning, protesters jangled bells, blew whistles, employed sirens and chanted in front of the home of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hoping to dissuade him from a nomination hearing. Police intervened when the increasingly disturbing protesters began knocking on his door.
By late Tuesday morning, with Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, Trump's thorn-in-the-side, saying he approved the process moving forward, Graham said he had the potential votes to confirm a nominee if he or she is qualified.
Although the South Carolina senator, like many Republicans, supported Barack Obama high court nominee Judge Merrick Garland not getting a hearing in 2016, another election year, he said the Kavanaugh hearing changed things.
"After Kavanaugh," he said earlier this year on a potential Supreme Court opening, "the rules have changed as far as I'm concerned. We'll see what the market will bear if that ever happens."
Graham, like so many Americans, was sickened at the false charges, hateful questioning and guilty-until-proven-innocent demeanor of Democrats.
"Being lectured by Democrats about how to handle judicial nominations is like an arsonist advising the Fire Department," he tweeted earlier this week.
Presidents come and go. Senate leadership comes and goes. Supreme Court majorities come and go. We believe voters have had enough misery this year and don't want to see Democrats threaten mob-like tactics on an already bruising nomination process.