From the first war between the first two societies in the history of mankind, it has been the rule the winner takes from the looser.

Whether it was conquest for land, food or simple control; the winner would kill the men, ravage the women, enslave the children and take the property of those who lost.

Such was the world during the Assyrians and Babylonians. Such was the world during the Greeks and Romans. Such was the world during the Europeans and Great Britain.

And such was the world under America. Slavery of the Africans by the Europeans and Americans, and its colonization by the Europeans, replaced the slavery of Africa by the Muslims and by indigenous tribes for centuries before centuries.

Such is the nature of man. As the scriptures say, God looked upon man and said his heart is evil and looks to do evil continually.

As monarchies were replaced by republics, physical warfare was replaced by politics.

But the nature of man was not replaced, regardless of what we tell ourselves. Politics is nonphysical warfare in which the victor takes the spoils.

President Donald Trump appointing Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a lesson in the victor takes the spoils.

In 2016, Trump won the presidency and the Republicans retained the Senate. That means the Republicans own the field on judicial appointments, and Trump in three years has appointed, according to the Pew Foundation, 194 of the 792 active federal judges in the federal judiciary.

That’s 24 percent of the total.

To put this in perspective, Pew reports that during his eight years in office, former president, Barack Obama, appointed 39%, George W. Bush’s eight years, accounted for 21%, Bill Clinton appointed 11%, and both George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan accounted for 2% of the federal judiciary.

According to Pew, “Trump has appointed more appeals court judges so far in his tenure than any president since Carter.”

If Trump is reelected, and his appointment rate continues, at the end of his eight years he will have appointed half the total federal judiciary.

So why does this matter?

From the 1930s and the courts adopting the policies of the New Deal, to the 1950s and the courts adopting civil rights and killing Jim Crow, to the 1960s and the imposition of the federal courts upon state courts in criminal justice, to the 1970s and the court affirming busing and forced integration and affirmative action, it has been Republican orthodoxy and a political directive that the courts must be captured and taken back from Progressives who have used the courts to impose their policies on America.

Every Republican president from Richard Nixon to Trump has asserted the selection of conservative judges and justices is a primary purpose of winning the presidency and the Senate.

Concurrently, the purpose of winning the presidency and the Senate was to keep the Democrats from doing so and appointing liberal judges and justices.

To the winner goes the spoils.

The wars in the Senate over Robert Bork in 1987, Clarence Thomas in 1991, Merrick Garland in 2016, Neil Gorsuch in 2017, and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 are all examples of the how total war has taken over the appointment of Supreme Court Justices.

In 2013, when Democrats were blocked by the minority led by Mitch McConnell, the Democrats under Harry Reid unleashed the nuclear option and by a raw power vote ended the filibuster for lower judicial appointments.

In 2017, when the Republicans had power, Mitch McConnell likewise used the nuclear option and ended the filibuster for Supreme Court appointments and broke democratic opposition to Gorsuch.

Again, to the victor goes the spoils.

With the vacancy on the court left by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Republicans stand at the cusp of a victory which they have sought since the 1930s.

They stand at the Rubicon of having a complete dominance of the Supreme Court with six social conservative justices on the bench.

How this achievement occurred brings us to one unhappy truth.

Americans have had the arrogant privilege of pretending that in American politics there are principles higher than achievement of power.

The Senate was an example of rule by mutual consent. Being that its history is based in being a body representing the states, mutual agreement was the tradition of deliberation rather than raw power of majority rule that governed the House.

One aspect of this tradition, and American politics as a whole, was political hypocrisy was something to be avoided.

It was to be avoided because it was arrogantly believed American politics was different from politics in other parts of the world, and in America, men governed for the betterment of society.

American politics had a moral code.

The facade of civility and comity was broken when the Republicans insulted Obama with an act of raw political power by not even giving Garland a hearing in 2017 because they said a sitting president, seven months before an election, should not appoint a Supreme Court justice.

This loss of comity and insult took an entirely new meaning when in 2020 they said Trump will be able to fill a position on the court 46 days before his reelection bid for president.

Any pretense of shame in political hypocrisy has been abandoned because the Republican Party, after more than six decades of politics, is at the doorstep of achieving its greatest desire, the dominance of social conservative justices on the Supreme Court.

The pretense of American politics being above total war is lost. It’s a Rubicon from which America will not return.

The rules have been set, to the victor goes the spoils.

***

Editor’s note: Dr. Arthur Garrison is a professor of criminal justice at Kutztown University and author of the book, “Chained to the System: The History and Politics of Black Incarceration in America.”