Just for reference, Scalia was confirmed by a 98-0 vote and RBG was confirmed by 96-3

[Poiuyt]

It didn't used to be this way. The Senate wasn't always broken.

[WarGamer]

1. Different era.

Today we're already 2 countries... just the gov't and borders don't acknowledge it yet.

[CrispyQ]

2. Scalia in 1986 & RBG in 1993.

Newt Gingrich started his contract with America sometime after Clinton was elected. A lot of today's acrimony in politics can be laid at his feet.

THE MAN WHO BROKE POLITICS
Newt Gingrich turned partisan battles into bloodsport, wrecked Congress, and paved the way for Trump’s rise. Now he’s reveling in his achievements.

By McKay Coppins
NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/

snip...

But few figures in modern history have done more than Gingrich to lay the groundwork for Trump’s rise. During his two decades in Congress, he pioneered a style of partisan combat—replete with name-calling, conspiracy theories, and strategic obstructionism—that poisoned America’s political culture and plunged Washington into permanent dysfunction. Gingrich’s career can perhaps be best understood as a grand exercise in devolution—an effort to strip American politics of the civilizing traits it had developed over time and return it to its most primal essence.

When I ask him how he views his legacy, Gingrich takes me on a tour of a Western world gripped by crisis. In Washington, chaos reigns as institutional authority crumbles. Throughout America, right-wing Trumpites and left-wing resisters are treating midterm races like calamitous fronts in a civil war that must be won at all costs. And in Europe, populist revolts are wreaking havoc in capitals across the Continent.

Twenty-five years after engineering the Republican Revolution, Gingrich can draw a direct line from his work in Congress to the upheaval now taking place around the globe. But as he surveys the wreckage of the modern political landscape, he is not regretful. He’s gleeful.

~more at link

[Hekate]

3. "Newt Gingrich...is gleeful"

Why? Just, why?

[Sneederbunk]

4. Yes, but that was before Repugs lost their sh*t.

[Brainfodder]

5. Corruption took over....

All those lockstep votes when Obama was president, the party of NO is not forgotten/forgiven!