The GOP violated norms to lock in control of the courts. To undo that, Dems need to break a norm too.

So are both sides wrong? Not in my view. Here's a thread explaining why.

Yes, the norm that Dems need to break (against court-packing) is real, and breaking it is damaging. We need to be clear-eyed about that.

But so were the norms the GOP broke when they blockaded Obama's court nominations for 2+ years, refused to let Obama fill a Scotus seat, geared up to keep the next Dem president from filling any Scotus seats, ...

... moved to fill a Scotus seat with reckless speed with voting already under way, and, most poisonous of all, broke their pledge not to fill election-year Scotus openings for their own side.

It's irresistible for pundits to describe the norm-breaking as a both-sides issue, familiar escalatory tit-for-tat, pox on both your houses.

I believe that's incorrect. Why?

Because the GOP norm-breaking has locked in governing dominance by a powerful minority.

And the key weapons that the judges installed by this minority are using to keep its dominance are vote suppression & other election-warping tactics.

The Dem norm-breaking will wrest that control back from the powerful minority, and it will remove barriers to voting and structures that distort electoral power.

One subverts American democracy.

The other restores American democracy.

Not the same.

Look, norms aren't a suicide pact. When the choice is between breaking a norm and breaking the country, playing by the old rules stops being something to crow about.

Even the geriatric gaggle of tired, timid Mitch victims still atop the Democratic party ought to see that by now.

To paraphrase Churchill, adding Supreme Court seats is the worst solution, except for all the others.

Now, Dem overreach is a danger. Could Dems add seats out of all proportion to *their* popular support? Yes. Could they erect barriers to voting targeting GOP voters? Sure. I think it's unlikely, but norms are guardrails, and removing them adds risk.

If Dems do try to overreach, I hope folks on the left will stand up to stop them, the way many on the right have stood up against Trumpism, and the way a few on the right have stood up against the whole ghoulish courts-and-votes project.

But, in my view, the hypothetical risk of Dem overreach is vastly lower than the mortal danger we're in from GOP overreach right now.

Like surgery to remove a deadly brain tumor, the treatment carries risk. Doing nothing is far, far riskier.

/end