Calls from Democratic voters and some outside groups to stop Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee by any means necessary have echoed across Twitter, in email campaigns, and in protests the wake of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement.



Democrats should “shut it down” — by refusing to show up to hearings or by getting arrested on the Senate floor. They should sue Republicans to “enforce the McConnell rule.” The problem for Democratic senators, however, is there’s not very much they can do to stop the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

The demands to stop Trump’s nominee come from a base that has become used to resistance — and in the case of the first major battle the Democratic Senate took on, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, to results.

Billionaire Tom Steyer, the California progressive who has criticized the party’s leadership and who happens to also be the party’s biggest donor, has pushed his group, Need to Impeach, to advocate for Democrats employing extreme measures when it comes to confirming Kavanaugh — though the group is vague on what, exactly, those are.

“We see this as a matter of political will,” said Kevin Mack, the group’s lead strategist. “Who has the political will to step up and stop this from happening? There’s always a way to stop things. Republicans figure out a way because they don’t care about political consequences.”

The grim reality — that Senate Democrats are virtually powerless to stop Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee on their own — may prove tough for some in the Democratic base to swallow.

“Some of the people have come up to me at parades and said, ‘Shut them down; do this and do that,’” said Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s minority whip. “It reflects a limited understanding of how the Senate operates.”

In hindsight, the early calls from Democratic senators to delay a vote on Kavanaugh were “inartful” and “unfortunate,” said Brian Fallon, a former Clinton campaign, Obama Justice Department spokesperson, and the president of the liberal judicial advocacy group Demand Justice.

“That was misunderstood. I think the senators throwing it out there, what they really just meant to do was call to mind the hypocrisy of [Sen. Mitch] McConnell,” Fallon said. “People thought they meant they were going to ‘pull out all the stops’ and try to block it — but they actually have no means to do that.”

When Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, Democratic voters watched in dismay, powerless, as Republicans refused to hold a vote or even hearings. After Kennedy announced his retirement last month, prominent Democrats quickly called for a vote to be delayed until after midterms, a chorus picked up by voters and outside groups.

The reality, though, is that Democrats remain a minority in the Senate, with no tools at their disposal to stop a vote on Kavanaugh. They no longer have the 60-vote threshold that Garland had needed to reach: McConnell eliminated it to push through Neil Gorsuch last year after Democrats opposed his confirmation. And after years of rule changes from former minority leader Harry Reid, when Republicans wouldn't approve Obama's court nominations, followed by the change from McConnell that essentially ended the ability of the minority party to block Supreme Court nominations, there’s not much left to do — besides vote.

That hasn’t stopped some Democrats, still feeling the sting of Garland’s nomination, from calling on their party to stop a vote on Kavanaugh just as McConnell did.

Actor Debra Messing, a prolific Resistance Twitter presence, has been tweeting repeatedly about shutting down a vote, urging people to tell their senators to “block any Supreme Court nomination til November” and even tweeting an opinion piece that urged Democrats to “sue to enforce the McConnell rule.”