Are Democrats serious about increasing the size of the Supreme Court?

The seal of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

President Trump has rejected a plan to stack the Supreme Court with as many as 15 justices. Reuters. The President said during a news conference that "The only reason they're doing that is they want to try to catch up, so if they can't catch up through the ballot box by winning an election they want to try doing it in a different way,". President Trump has confirmed two conservative justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, which shifted the balance of the court to a solid 5-4 conservative majority. At least one candidate for the 2020 election has said he would expand the court to 15 justices. Long shot candidate Peter Buttigieg has made that a campaign promise. 

In addition to Buttigieg, more prominent Democrats have also examined the idea. Elizabeth Warren, Robert Francis O'Rourke and Kristen Gillibrand all expressed interest in the idea and Kamala Harris has not ruled out. 1st term congress woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has a lot.

My Comment:

Packing the Supreme Court is not a mainstream idea yet. I think even most Democrats would believe that this is beyond the pale and would essentially be an act of war. Doing so would be crossing a major red line and could lead to severe consequences. It would essentially be breaking the union that binds the country. You can't just change the rules that dramatically just because you are angry that you lost an election. 

However, the Overton Window appears to be shifting. The idea, which has been unthinkable for a long time now, is starting to rise up in acceptability, at least for extremists on the left. Both the economic leftists and the identity politics people seem to approve of the idea. 

The idea isn't exactly new. FDR famously attempted to do the same thing during his term. He was widely criticized for the act which was even denounced by his supporters as a naked power grab. This scheme is one of the reasons I am not that big of a fan of FDR. The plan failed as congress wanted nothing to do with it. 

Why bring it up now? Because the Democrats are still angry about Merrick Garland. Though Garland was described as a moderate by the media, he was so far to the left that there was no way that the Republicans would ever vote for him. They did what they were allowed to do and didn't bring Garland up for a vote. 

For some reason the Democrats found this unforgivable and have been seeking revenge ever since. We saw this with the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation where they launched totally bogus attacks against him and accused him of being a rapist. After that, a court packing scheme seems almost quaint. 

All that being said, I don't think that this is a serious proposal. The only ones saying for sure that they would stack the court are Peter Buttigieg, who doesn't have a chance, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who isn't running and is kind of an idiot. My guess is people are just saying it in order to stand out in the primaries and they will pivot back the sanity after a candidate is chosen.