nomination and confirmation process dating back to Bork (and perhaps before then, but Bork is the one that sticks out for me), but McConnell established a very specific precedent with his handling of Scalia's replacement.

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,”

"The American people are perfectly capable of having their say on this issue, so let's give them a voice. Let's let the American people decide. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be,"

And that was with nearly 9 months until the election when Scalia passed. This is with less than 2 months to go until the election

If the dems nominate a candidate and the republicans pull people out of the woodwork to critique the use of the word "boofing" from that nominee's high school yearbook, dem supporters will have ZERO standing for crying foul. The democrats have made "Borking" candidates an art form. And while I thought Kavanaugh handled himself like a petulant child and not someone worthy of being on the supreme court, the dem's handling of the nomination process was disgraceful.

But in this instance, it's total bullshit and completely inconsistent for Mitch to allow a nominee to go through with 8 weeks until the election with Trump as president, when he failed to allow it with 9 MONTHS until the election with Obama as president. There's zero excuse for that.