There is an old saying in politics that elections have consequences.
Apparently, Washington only believes that when its side wins.
Donald Trump was elected president. Whether you voted for him, voted against him or didn’t vote at all, that’s an indisputable fact. And one of the responsibilities Americans gave him was choosing the people who will serve in his administration and nominating judges to our federal courts.
Yet once again, Washington has turned what should be a serious constitutional responsibility into political warfare.
Trump’s nominees during his second administration have faced extraordinary delays. In fact, studies of the confirmation process have found that his nominees have experienced the longest average confirmation delays on record.
The backlog became so significant that the Senate has resorted to confirming nominees in large groups. Just this past week, the Senate confirmed 74 Trump nominees at once, approving them by a 51-47 vote. Those appointments included officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy, State and other federal agencies.
Seventy-four nominees in one vote.
That tells you something about how backed up this process had become.
Now, in fairness, Donald Trump isn’t the first president to encounter obstruction.
Far from it.
This problem has been developing for years, and Republicans aren’t innocent.
Barack Obama encountered significant resistance from Senate Republicans, particularly after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015.
The most famous example was Merrick Garland.
When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, Obama nominated Garland to replace him. Senate Republicans refused to hold a confirmation hearing or vote on the nomination, arguing that voters should have a voice through the upcoming presidential election.
Garland waited for months and never received a vote.
Donald Trump won the election and ultimately filled that Supreme Court seat with Neil Gorsuch.
The fighting over Obama’s other judicial and executive nominees had become so intense even before Garland that Senate Democrats changed the rules in 2013, eliminating the 60-vote requirement for most presidential nominations.
Republicans bitterly complained about that change at the time.
Then they eventually used the same rules to their advantage.
Trump encountered Democratic resistance during his first term as well. Democrats frequently opposed his nominees and forced procedural votes.
But here’s an interesting fact that doesn’t fit neatly into either party’s talking points: despite Trump’s complaints about obstruction during his first term, many of his judicial nominees actually moved through the Senate relatively quickly, particularly his circuit court nominees.
Trump ultimately put 234 federal judges on the bench during his first four years.
Then Joe Biden became president.
And guess what happened?
The roles reversed again.
Republicans opposed many Biden nominees, and Biden initially experienced a remarkably slow confirmation process for executive branch appointments.
Democrats complained that Republicans were obstructing the president’s ability to govern.
Sound familiar?
But Democrats controlled the Senate and made judicial confirmations a major priority. By the end of Biden’s presidency, the Senate had confirmed 235 of his federal judges — one more than Trump’s 234 during his first term.
So let’s dispense with the fiction that either political party has clean hands.
They don’t.
Republicans obstruct Democratic presidents.
Democrats obstruct Republican presidents.
Then control of Washington changes and everyone switches speeches.
The people screaming about obstruction yesterday suddenly discover the importance of Senate oversight. The people defending Senate prerogatives yesterday suddenly demand immediate confirmation votes.
It’s Washington hypocrisy at its finest.
But something appears particularly broken about the current process when dozens upon dozens of nominees accumulate and the Senate ultimately has to approve 74 of them in one batch.
If 74 people were acceptable enough to confirm together, why couldn’t many of them have been considered and voted upon months earlier?
The Constitution gives the president the power to nominate federal judges, ambassadors and senior executive branch officials.
It gives the Senate an equally important responsibility: advice and consent.
That doesn’t mean rubber-stamping everyone a president nominates.
Senators should investigate nominees. They should hold hearings. They should ask difficult questions.
If someone is unqualified, unethical or unsuitable for office, vote against that person.
That’s the Senate’s job.
But there is a tremendous difference between scrutinizing a nominee and deliberately dragging out the process because you dislike the president who nominated him or her.
Judicial nominations are particularly important.
Federal judges make decisions involving constitutional rights, criminal prosecutions, businesses, property, government regulations and countless other matters affecting ordinary Americans.
When a legitimate vacancy exists, the country benefits from having a qualified judge sitting in that courtroom rather than leaving the position vacant because politicians are playing games in Washington.
The same applies to executive appointments.
We elect presidents to run the executive branch.
Imagine buying a company, hiring a president to turn it around and then telling that president he can’t select his management team.
We’d consider that ridiculous.
Yet Washington increasingly operates under precisely that mentality.
There is also a broader lesson in this history.
Every time one party escalates the confirmation wars, the other party eventually retaliates.
Republicans delayed Obama nominees.
Democrats changed the filibuster rules.
Republicans blocked Garland.
Democrats fought Trump nominees.
Republicans fought Biden nominees.
Now Democrats are fighting Trump’s nominees again.
Where does it end?
Someone eventually has to decide that winning the next procedural battle isn’t worth doing permanent damage to the institution.
Trump won the 2024 election.
He should be allowed to assemble his administration, subject to the legitimate advice-and-consent responsibilities of the Senate.
That doesn’t mean Democrats have to like his nominees.
It doesn’t mean they have to vote for them.
It means they should do their jobs.
Hold the hearings.
Investigate the nominees.
Ask the tough questions.
Debate their qualifications.
Then vote.
Yes or no.
And Republicans should remember this moment because eventually there will be another Democratic president.
When that happens, the same principle should apply.
Presidents deserve the opportunity to govern. Senators deserve the opportunity to scrutinize their nominees.
And Americans deserve a federal government in which important positions aren’t held hostage indefinitely to partisan warfare.
Advice and consent should mean exactly that.
It shouldn’t mean delay and obstruct until the other side gives up.
Elections have consequences.
Sometimes that means the person you didn’t vote for gets to govern.
That’s democracy.
President Trump exhibits many signs of dementia but Congress lacks the intestinal fortitude to invoke the 25th Amendment. Thanks to him, America has set a terrible example and is mocked, pitied, and ignored by the rest of the world. America starts wars it can’t finish or can’t win. Trump lies, cheats, and breaks the Ten Commandments and guess what? The citizens follow his example.
I grew up in Sturgis and am old enough to remember a much better world. I remember high school in Betty Reith’s class we had to memorize three poems that were meaningful to us and read them to everyone. Of course, most of us used song lyrics. One poem I recited was Blowing in the Wind by Bob Dylan, only three stanzas and it said so much. Another song poem I read was much longer, about America’s history and future. It read like a prophecy and is still very accurate in 2026.
Monster / Suicide / America by Steppenwolf.
It starts like this:
“Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing a promise of freedom of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope”
It ends like this:
“ America, where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know, we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the Monster.”
You should check it out sometime.
If no one has ever called you a massive hypocrite I’ll start.
Trump has no interest in governing. His only agenda is to 1) exact revenge against his enemies using the DOJ and other government agencies, 2) plaster the White House with cheap gold crap, 3) insult our allies and praise the dictators, 4) deport people who have every right to be in this country, 5) build monuments to himself and 6) steal money from the American taxpayer. He has placed people in positions of power who have fewer qualifications than my 8 year old granddaughter.
All your grievances are simply reflections of the Republicans tactics. Mitch McConnell (yes, he’s still dead} held up most Obama judicial picks for nearly the entire 4 years of his 2nd term. How many military promotions were held up by Tommy (I never finished middle school) Tubberville?
Law and order? Sending National Guard troops to DC who ended up picking up trash and sleeping on gym floors? Allowing ill trained ICE agents to KILL innocent US citizens and then destroy as much evidence as possible? Charging an Olympic athlete with a felony for touching the botched reflecting pool job that was never approve.
And hey – if you rented your house to someone would it be OK if they decided to tear down part of it for something ludicrous and then charge YOU to rebuild it?
The bottom line is that this entire administration should (and hopefully will) be in jail in the near future. They have broken more laws than I can count, lied to Congress and the public and acted only if it is what the “King” wants.
There has never been an administration as corrupt as his and, if we survive it, never will be again.
You are truly a hideous excuse for a human being.