Antonin Scalia (1936-2016)

The 2016 election has quite suddenly morphed into a struggle for control of the U.S. Supreme Court. If the Republicans refuse to fill Scalia’s seat with a new Obama nominee until the inauguration of a new president next January, then they will be openly guilty of sabotaging the Constitution so that their minority party can control the country. As you may recall, that has been tried before in 2013 when John Boehner and Mitch McConnell staged a shutdown of Congress.

Republicans like to think that most Americans are conservatives. That is true to some extent, especially where fiscal issues are concerned, but untrue when it comes to cultural issues. And that divergence can only be expected to grow as the aging angry white population of the U.S. dies off.