Blocking Trump’s replacements for Alito and/or Thomas

This story appeared in the Times this morning:

Demand Justice, a liberal organization, has mounted robust efforts to block President Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court in the past, but never before a vacancy existed.

For now, none of the nine Supreme Court justices have announced plans to retire, and Mr. Trump has no looming opportunity to keep stocking the court with younger conservative justices.

That isn’t stopping Demand Justice from preparing a multimillion-dollar effort to oppose potential Trump Supreme Court appointees before they happen — with a warning that Mr. Trump could be replacing two justices this year.

The preparations come at a moment when Democrats are feeling optimistic about their ability to break Republican control of Congress, and when there is growing fear in some corners of the party that Mr. Trump will seek to install loyalist justices who could sit on the court for decades.

And what do you know:

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was treated at a hospital last month after leaving early from a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia in his honor, several sources briefed on the event told ABC News. 

Alito, who marks 20 years on the bench this year and recently turned 76, was supposed to give the keynote address at the March 20 event but did not make remarks.

He was described by those who saw him that evening as appearing “tired” and not as engaging as usual, remaining seated as attendees came over to greet him during the dinner, according to the sources. 

Clarence Thomas will be 78 in June. Next month he will become the second-longest serving justice in SCOTUS history, trailing only William O. Douglas, who not coincidentally was very obviously suffering from dementia over the course of his last couple of terms on the court. (After he resigned under pressure, he showed up for the beginning of the next term anyway, and was outraged when he found the clerks he had hired had been assigned to other justices, and he tried to sit in on the court’s conference deliberations. The justices all signed a letter informing him that he was no longer on the court and could no longer do this. No word if anyone produced coffee cups with The Notorious William O. inscribed on the side).

The Times’s story assumes there’s a good chance that either Alito or Thomas will resign either this summer, or sometime after the November elections, given that they are now both in the same position that RBG was in back in 2014, when she made her catastrophically foolish and selfish decision to roll the dice on the 2016 election. I have my doubts about how good the odds are: both of these guys are complete egomaniacs, and nobody gives $400K RVs to ex-SCOTUS justices — but it could well happen of course.

The most interesting possibility will arise if Democrats actually take the Senate back, and either Alito or Thomas dies or becomes incapacitated before January 2029. If that happens, it should go without saying that Chuck Schumer or whoever takes his place should simply dismiss the idea of holding confirmation hearings on Aileen Cannon’s or somebody even worse’s nomination out of hand. Of course this will produce endless pearl clutching from reactionary centrists and even a Reasonable Liberal ™ or two, but come on.

I hope we get to find out.