By Chase Wheaton

Before Monday evening’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke to the Senate and painted a vivid picture of the GOP’s mindset regarding its role in the current political landscape, saying “A lot of what we've done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won't be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”

It seems to me that Senator McConnell has seen the proverbial writing on the wall, and that he knows that the American electorate is turning out in record numbers to demand change, which is why he capitalized on the Supreme Court vacancy before his power as Senate majority leader comes to a close. Whether McConnell believes that Biden will win, that Democrats will regain control of the Senate, or that both will occur, he knows that he will never again be able to influence the country in the name of conservative politics like he can now, and so, similar to a child flipping over a board game just before he or she loses, Donald Trump and the entire GOP knowingly went against the will of the majority of Americans to shape the legal and political landscape of this country in their image for decades to come.

This means that McConnell and Trump have successfully created a Supreme Court that’s more conservative than it has been in almost 70 years, and that represents their own interests, ideals, and beliefs rather than those of the American people. 

Given President Trump’s legislative record, and compared with the number of Supreme Court appointments by previous presidents, this is by far Trump’s greatest accomplishment. For perspective, President Trump, in his one term, has appointed more Supreme Court justices than any other one-term Republican president since Herbert Hoover in 1929. In fact, in recent history, while the Republican party has lost six of the last seven popular votes, they have appointed five of the last nine Supreme Court justices. 

If the Democratic Party has any hope of passing meaningful legislation or creating significant change in the next 10 to 20 years, they must seriously consider expanding the court and adding justices that reflect the values of the American people, and not those of a one-term, impeached president and a power-hungry white man from Kentucky. Otherwise, in a few years, as a gay man, I will be waving goodbye to my right to get married, and millions of women will be waving goodbye to their right to an abortion.

Wheaton is a higher education professional working in university housing, based in Greenville, N.C.