The Real Stakes in the 2024 Election
If Biden gets to nominate two replacements for two justices, he will reshape the composition of the Supreme Court.
With the two oldest members of the Supreme Court having been appointed by Republicans, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, should he win the presidency, President Biden could reshape the composition of the Supreme Court into the next decade and beyond if either Thomas or Alito leave the bench in a Biden second term. Democrats are salivating at that possibility.
Something has been overlooked in President Biden’s victory in 2020. If Donald Trump had won, he would have had the opportunity to appoint a fourth SCOTUS nominee to replace Stephen Breyer, whose seat was filled by Biden with the 2022 nomination of Kitanji Brown Jackson. Had Breyer retired under a second Trump presidency, the Supreme Court would now have a 7-2 Conservative Majority.
Why is this important? Pressure is now being openly placed by Democrat/Liberal interests on Justice Sotomayor, who is 69 and suffers from diabetes, to retire before this November’s presidential election. If she does, President Biden can appoint her replacement while he still has a Senate majority to confirm his potential nominee.
Before you say that this is some conspiracy theory, many Democrats are already saying the quiet part out loud. This starts with 78-year-old Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who recently said, “I’m very respectful of Justice Sotomayor. I have great admiration for her. But I think she has to weigh the competing factors. We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s any mystery here about what the lesson should be. The old saying—graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included.”
In the Washington Post, columnist Jim Geraghty recently cited Democrat activist-journalist Nate Silver on his Substack, saying, “Sotomayor should retire. This is a much higher-stakes decision than nearly everything else I’ll discuss … this year. And it is not a close call.”
