A SCOTUS Opening

[Dill]

(09-23-2020, 03:16 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: All I have to go on is anecdotal for this, but I'm going to see if anyone has done research on it. I'm genuinely curious and almost certain that there has been a journal article or research paper done on this topic.

The difficulty with researching a topic like that is that you'd have to have a fairly stable definition of 'actions' which both sides could agree are good or bad, and to what degree. There might not be a whole lot of difference before Trump. Certainly not before Gingrich.

Remember that before Trump, neither party would support candidates who openly called women "ugly" and praised Russian autocrats.

Hermann Cain was knocked out the 2012 primary because two sexual harassment allegations surfaced, dropping his numbers. That was Republican voters holding him accountable. Gingrich had difficulty getting broad support because of his marriage history.

One of the oddities about the current situation is that as Republicans have rather suddenly embraced Trump regardless of his history of sexual assault accusations, marital infidelity, public misogyny, racism, covering for Putin and MBS, abuse of power, and calling military members "losers," some are now equally adamant that Dems would do the exactly same. 

Nevermind that even Republicans would not do the same BEFORE Trump.   

I think that is part of the general effort to mitigate behavior that is over-the-top ugly in any human being, let alone the leader of the free world, and normalize Trump. Dem candidates are just or nearly as bad. (Biden once "slurred a whole race"--did you hear?)