Its likely just a matter of when, not if, #45 nominates a replacement for the late RBG. He held a ceremony at the white house just last week to unveil a short list of future nominees , and just yesterday the country was processing the news of the death of RBG, an apparent oblivious #45 was at a rally in Bemidji, Minnesota, talking about nominating Sen. Ted Cruz to the bench. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who had previously gone around the country telling donors that Ginsburg's death would be his party's "October Surprise", pledged Friday that #45's nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the US Senate."
Its a far cry from 4 years ago. When this same situation unfolded in 2016, after Justice Antone Scalia died in February of that year, many Senate Republicans , most of whom are still in the chamber---drew what purported to be a principle line in the sand, insisting that it was too close to the Presidential election for then POTUS Barack Obama to choose a replacement. It should bu up to the voters to decide in November, they argued. Some of them even invoked the words of then VP Joe Biden , who as a Senator several decades earlier had offered similar logic. They called it "The Biden Rule." (Biden, in 1992, was not responding to any actual vacancy, but merely a hypothetical one). When then POTUS Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland anyway, no one led the charge as stubbornly as McConnell; He shamelessly flip flopped about the appropriateness of filling a SCOTUS seat in a presidential election year. A few weeks after Scalia's passing McConnell, in the Senate chamber said "The decision the Senate announced weeks ago, remains about a principle, and not a person. The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualifications of the nominee, the next president nominates, whoever that might be."
Here we are, 5-6 weeks away from a Presidential election and the repubs are pushing and rushing to satisfy #45s giant ego. They are tired and exhausted burning the midnight oil