Mitch McConnell's Moral Mandate

It seems so long ago. In March 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to be a member of the Supreme Court. Through various actions, Senate majority leader (Republican) Mitch McConnell blocked this nomination. It did not even come to a vote in the Senate. His justification was that a justice should not be added to the Supreme Court in a year in which an election for president is occurring. It should go to the people, he would famously say. It would be eight months until the election was held.

Here we now are, in September 2020, and President Donald Trump will soon nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The presidential election is 37 days away. Mitch McConnell, still senate majority leader, is quite clear that he will do everything he can to get Barrett confirmed before the election.

It's not just McConnell. Several other leading Republicans who very clearly blocked Garland's appointment on the grounds of it being an election year are now doing the exact same u-turn. Many of these same people said in 2016 that they would oppose any nomination in an election year, regardless of the political party. This is, on the surface, very hypocritical.

I'm not here to question the credentials of either Garland or Barrett. I also am not here to point the finger at any particular party. I haven't a clue if democratic leaders would've done the same thing if the roles were reversed.

I think research on moral mandates provides an interesting perspective on this. In short, a moral mandate is a strong conviction that you are doing good, so much so that failure to act in such a way would actually be immoral and unjust. Research on moral mandates shows that these beliefs bypass typical concerns with fairness and equality. That is, even when people recognize injustice and unfairness, they will still act if it means promoting their moral mandate.

This provides an interesting alternative to the other possibilities, wherein politicians making these decisions remain blind to their own biases, or are aware of everything and are merely acting in self-interest. If so, then these politicians are seemingly, it could be argued, behaving with no moral compass whatsoever. If, however, these politicians are acting on a moral mandate, then that is not the case.

I guess pragmatically speaking it doesn't so much matter. Either way, Barrett gets put on the Supreme Court and Garland didn't, in what are by all accounts identical circumstances (McConnell's arguments about having the senate and presidency as both Republican this time, and Obama not having a majority in the senate fall flat). But, I think in terms of everyday civility and discourse it does make a difference.

It is possible that McConnell and his peers might feel a moral mandate to act this way, which might not necessarily be motivated by power or self-interest. It might really just be a difference in moral values.