Mitch McConnell Is Literally Learning to Govern from House of Cards

Sometime on the evening-morning of February 12-13, 2016, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died. This set off a firestorm of political posturing, as the Republican controlled Senate indicated that it would not hold nomination hearings until after November’s general election.

In was literally an hour after Scalia’s death was announced that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that there would be no confirmation hearings on an Obama nominee.

That such political shenanigans would ensue in 2016 comes as a surprise to no one. Why respect the dead of one’s own political base when one could attempt to alpha-dog the sitting president instead?

But then McConnell came out with a peculiarly bald assertion of the importance of the lobbyists who have his ear: A Republican majority Senate is not going to move to approve a Supreme Court justice who is opposed by the National Rifle Association. He said as much on March 20.

The fact that the NRA has the Republicans in its pocket comes as a surprise to no one. But the idea of giving them de facto veto power over a nominee, and trumpeting this on television as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, seems like something crazy. It seems like something out of a T.V. drama.

Maybe that’s exactly what it is.

You see, a peculiar thing happened between February 13 and March 20.

On March 4, 2016, Season 4 of House of Cards was released.

And do you want to take a wild guess at what one of the major plot lines running through Season 4 happens to be?

If you guessed, “Appointment of Supreme Court justice,” well done!

Now, for the big prize, what is the singular issue around which the appointment of this justice is revolving?

That’s right. In Episode 7 we see that passing of a gun-control measure is being leveraged against the appointment of a Supreme Court justice, and right there in the middle of it all is the NRA exercising its veto power through the Republicans in the Senate.

-You plan to hold up the Supreme Court nomination as well?

-Unless you’re going to nominate an NRA member.

-You know we can’t do that.

-Jacobs was unpredictable. This time we’re not taking any chances.

Just like that. The NRA, sitting at a table in Washington, dictating Supreme Court nominations. Dictating whether or not there will even be a vote.

We were watching this with friends last night. After the episode one of them said, “It’s amazing how prescient this is.” Now, to a certain degree he’s right on the money. Nobody knew during filming that there would be a real life Supreme Court nomination fight during this election year.

But the bit about the NRA holding up the process? The idea that it’s ok to give a lobbying group overt power over what the Senate will or will not take a vote on? The idea that it’s ok to give that power to this one particular group?

That’s not prescient.

The T.V. show came first.

Congratulations to Mich McConnell. He clearly has staffers who know where to go for policy inspiration. In the five weeks after Scalia’s death the talking points went from, “The American people have a right to have a voice in the next Supreme Court justice,” to, “The Republican Senate is not going to approve someone opposed by the NRA.” In between? The release of Season 4.

And so we have the only thing more preposterous than deferring to the NRA in the first place: the Senate Majority Leader of the United States of America is learning how to govern from House of Cards.