If you are unfortunate enough to hear Republicans explain the reason they have abandoned their Constitutional responsibility to hold hearings on President Obama’s supreme court nominee, you too would conclude that dirty politics are at play. The reason given by these Republicans is that “the American people must have a say in the nomination process.” They figure that allowing the next president to make Obama’s Supreme Court nomination is “listening to the American people.”
But this new poll shows that the American people are not as dumb as Republicans think we are. An overwhelming majority have already figured out that this brand of Republican politics is reeking!
Overall, 77 percent of Americans say they think Republicans are “playing politics” by not allowing nominee Merrick Garland to get a hearing. That total includes 62 percent of Republicans.
Senate Republicans say filling the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat should be left to the next president so that voters have a say in the process.
“We think the important principle in the middle of this presidential election which is raging, is that the American people need to weigh in and decide who’s going to make this decision, not this lame-duck president on the way out the door, but the next president, next year,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Fox News Sunday.
But only 16 percent of voters in the Monmouth University Poll said they believe that argument.
At 28 percent, self-identified Republicans were more likely to say that lawmakers were trying to include Americans in the process, compared to 13 percent of independents and 9 percent of Democrats.
