There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents an expansion of the Supreme Court, yet President Donald Trump is whining about the possibility that Democrats will do just that if former Vice President Joe Biden beats him and has a majority in the Senate.

Of course, the only reason Democrats are threatening to pack the Supreme Court is because Trump and Republicans are moving to rush through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginburg, who recently passed away. Republicans are doing this even though they refused to even hold a hearing for former President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia when he died several months prior to the 2016 Election by insisting that new justices cannot be confirmed in an election year and that the American people should get to decide who picks the next justice.

This attempt to seize complete control of the high court by ignoring a precedent they themselves set and committing hypocrisy in the process is exactly what has revived the idea to stack the Supreme Court with more justices and tip the scales far away from the conservative extremism that has been delegitimizing the court and taking the country backward for decades.

The last attempt to pack the court came during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration in an attempt to bring it to heel to put an end to a string of decisions dismantling the New Deal, which was passed by Congress, supported by a majority of Americans, and did not really violate the Constitution as much as it upset whiny conservatives who didn’t get their way after they caused the Great Depression that warranted the social and economic programs that made up the New Deal legislation.

Social Security very well may not exist had FDR not threatened the Supreme Court into submission with his court-packing plan.

But Trump is trying to scare Americans by trying to convince them that packing the court is a destructive idea.

Again, the Constitution does not say how many justices should make up the high court. In fact, it gives Congress the power to add and subtract justices at will. While Congress chose not to pursue FDR’s plan in 1937, the number of justices on the bench has changed multiple times throughout our nation’s history. Legislation originally set the number of judges to six in 1789. If Republicans were really “originalists” they would cancel Trump’s current nomination and kick his previous two off the court to bring the number back to six again. But they won’t do that because this has never been about having a different view as it is about wanting to have absolute power and to force an agenda upon a nation that largely opposes it.

The number of justices on the court was set at seven, ten, and nine respectively during the next 80 years, with the configuration of nine being the most recent and current. But that was passed back in 1869 and desperately needs an update.

Congress has the power to add more justices to the Supreme Court. If Democrats take the Senate and keep control of the House, they can do just that and send the legislation to Biden for his signature. All of a sudden, Democrats can punish Republicans for stealing Supreme Court seats by adding whatever number of justices they want to tip the balance of power, therefore neutering the conservative extremist agenda and creating a weaker and more accountable court that won’t go around denying the will of the people based on flimsy interpretation of a document that is 233 years old and clearly has not been read by any of the Republicans who constantly tout it.

Trump and Republicans can whine, but they only have themselves to blame. They’ve forced Democrats to make a power play of their own. Republicans clearly have no problem trying to seize the Supreme Court and use it for their own political gain, so Democrats should nuke the court in retaliation and take it back. And it’s perfectly constitutional.

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