In the early evening of October 26, Amy Coney Barrett was officially confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the 115th justice to preside on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Yet, even before the tally was taken, Democrats were in a tizzy, vowing they would avenge Barrett's confirmation by blowing up the Judicial Branch.

From the party leadership on down, the left went apoplectic once they realized Barrett's confirmation was a fait accompli.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who used every trick in the book to prevent or delay the confirmation, made it clear that the Republicans would rue the day they decided to follow the Constitution by voting on the president's nominee.

On the Senate floor, hours before the vote, Schumer taunted Republicans: "The next time the American people give Democrats a majority in this chamber, you will have forfeited the right to tell us how to run that majority[.] ... My colleagues may regret this for a lot longer than they think."

Shame on Schumer.  However, his veiled threat was par for the course.

Joe Biden's running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), tweeted, "Today Republicans denied the will of the American people by confirming a Supreme Court justice through an illegitimate process... We won't forget this."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) chimed in: "A vote for Amy Coney Barrett is a vote to rubber stamp an illegitimate process."

That is false, unless Warren and Harris believe that following the letter of the law, under the Constitution, is illegitimate.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that "[w]e've got to have a wide-open conversation about how do we rebalance our courts."  Rebalancing the courts, as Coons put it, is unprecedented.

But Coons, like many of his fellow Democrats, believes that this is necessary, "because we've seen hundreds of conservative judges put on circuit courts and district courts all over this country in the last four years, in many cases, too young, too unqualified, and too far right to be allowed to sit peaceably without our re-examining the process, the results, and the consequences."

Coons's statement is strange, considering the fact that the U.S. Senate has approved every federal judge over the past four years.  Many Democrats have voted in favor of these judges, including Barrett, when she was confirmed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, the calls for overhauling the nation's Judicial Branch are even more forceful and frightening.

Immediately following Barrett's confirmation, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted, "Expand the court."

She added, "Republicans do this because they don't believe Dems have the stones to play hardball like they do.  And for a long time they've been correct. But do not let them bully the public into thinking their bulldozing is normal but a response isn't.  There is a legal process for expansion."

Sandy O's sentiments were echoed by several other members of the House, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who tweeted, "By expanding the court we fix this broken system and have the court better represent the values of the American people."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took the calls for court expansion even farther during an interview on MSNBC.  "In 1876, there were nine justices on the court.  Our population has grown enormously since then.  Should we expand the court?  Let's take a look and see[.] ... And that relates to the nine district courts, maybe we need more district courts as well," said Pelosi.

Based on their statements following the successful confirmation of Barrett, it seems as if the Democrats are willing to destroy the inviolability of the nation's legal system so that they can "control" the Judicial Branch.

This is unprecedented in American history.  This is what banana republics do.  If the United States is to remain the world's beacon of freedom, our system of checks and balances must remain resolute.  And our system of separation of powers must remain resonant.

For more than 150 years, both parties have respected these fundamental principles as well as the sanctity of the nine-justice Supreme Court.

Once, in 1936, an attempt was made to pack the court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  This failed spectacularly because congressional Democrats refused to go along with FDR's partisan scheme.

The same cannot be said about congressional Democrats in 2020.  If given the opportunity, they will do the unthinkable.  And if they are successful, the U.S. justice system will never be the same.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is an editor at The Heartland Institute.

Image: Pixabay.