Biden and Harris won’t answer the court-packing question because they probably support it

It’s not like Joe isn’t willing to disappoint the ultra-liberal base.

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Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, refuse to comment on whether they are thinking about packing the Supreme Court. That is because they are almost certainly thinking about packing the Supreme Court.

Politically speaking, it is easier to dodge the question, even with stupid non-answers, than it is to come out 20-something days before the election and say, “yes, we are giving it serious consideration.”

Biden was asked for the umpteenth time Thursday where he stands on the matter. For the umpteenth time, he declined to say.

“You'll know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over,” he told reporters, alleging that the issue is a distraction from Democrats' false assertion that Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is being “rushed.”

On Wednesday, Harris was asked during the vice-presidential debate whether she and Biden will “pack the court if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed.” The senator dodged the question in the most ham-fisted manner possible.

“In 1864,” she said at the outset of a stemwinder that did everything but answer the question, “Honest Abe said, ‘It’s not the right thing to do. The American people deserve to make the decision about who will be the next president of the United States. And then that person can select who will serve for a lifetime on the highest court of our land.’”

Vice President Mike Pence called her out for ducking the issue, pressing her for a second time to say whether she and Biden will pack the court if Barrett is confirmed.

“Let’s talk about packing the court then,” the senator responded, “[Of the] 50 people who President Trump appointed to the court of appeals for lifetime appointments, not one is black? This is what they’ve been doing. You want to talk about packing a court? Let’s have that discussion.”

It has been like this with Harris and Biden since court-packing became a serious 2020 issue for the Left following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18. The Democratic ticket simply will not say one way or the other where they stand on the issue.

My Washington Examiner colleague Kaylee McGhee posits that Biden and Harris's refusal to answer the question stems from a shared desire to avoid “isolating any part of its voter coalition.”

“[S]taking out a position on such a radical policy would do just that,” McGhee argues.

I am going to have to disagree with my colleague.

Biden absolutely has no problem disavowing left-wing fantasies, as he did last week when he stated outright that he does not support the Green New Deal, which his own running-mate co-sponsored in the Senate. The notion that he is dodging the court-packing question, which is a huge one, because he does not want to alienate parts of his base does not quite hold, considering he is not shy about throwing cold water on things such as Medicare for All and the Left’s multitrillion-dollar plan to “green” the U.S. economy. If we are talking about walking on eggshells so as not to alienate parts of the Democratic base, let’s not forget that Biden boasts often and proudly that he “beat the socialist” in the 2020 primary.

The Democratic nominee himself says he will not answer the court-packing question because whatever he says will become the story. This excuse also fails to pass the sniff test. The same excuse can be said of literally any topic. If Biden is afraid his answer will become a distraction, then what of his responses to questions about racism, abortion, the coronavirus pandemic, and similarly hot-button issues? Why decline just the court-packing topic? It makes no sense to say he cannot talk about one politically charged issue all while speaking openly and freely about a dozen others.

Court-packing is the only area where both Biden and Harris have nothing to say, which leads me to believe they support the matter. If they did not, they would have given a “no” by now, rather than beclown themselves regularly with these increasingly ludicrous non-answers.

But as ridiculous as they are, the non-answers are politically preferable to admitting in the lead-up to Election Day that they are giving serious consideration to fundamentally transforming one of the three branches of the U.S. government.