Not arguing against this at all but I think the shift from overwhelming approval to narrow party line margins for approval for such significant roles becoming the increasingly stronger norm over the past few decades has been fairly shocking. Maybe the more impressive thing was how long it was largely bipartisan in these special cases like the supreme court. Overall the whole tendency to leave the vetting to the parties - at any level - the spoils of electoral politics as war has to seem horrible in retrospect.
Not arguing against this at all but I think the shift from overwhelming approval to narrow party line margins for approval for such significant roles becoming the increasingly stronger norm over the past few decades has been fairly shocking. Maybe the more impressive thing was how long it was largely bipartisan in these special cases like the supreme court. Overall the whole tendency to leave the vetting to the parties - at any level - the spoils of electoral politics as war has to seem horrible in retrospect.