Obama didn't fight for his pick because the party wanted to use it to motivate voters to vote for Hillary, which didn't work.
McTurtle refused to vote to confirm, and legally all that needs to happen is the Senate has an opportunity to vote to confirm. Obama had a year to say:
"I take no vote to mean no objections, Merrick Garland is on the SC"
Except Garland probably wouldn't be that much different than Trump's picks.
Stop blaming the voters for stupid shit the only option we have to vote for keeps doing.
The party refused to pressure Breyer & RBG to step down. Obama refused to play hardball with Garland.
Biden negotiated with himself and cut debt forgiveness to 10K. Then the SC strikes it down , and he throws his hands up and walks away. I'm old enough to remember when Trump's obviously unconstitutional muslim ban got banned and he rewrote it and tried again until it stuck. It didn't fully take until the third try. Then he expanded it twice.
[Edit: I looked it up and he did give it another go, my b]
It's because the same billionaires/corporations donate to both parties.
If a moderate wins, the most they'll do is "try" they were paid too much money to actually succeed, so they do the bare minimum till people stop complaining they didn't do anything.
And the donors know that means a republican will likely win the next election, which is their preference anyways.
The moderate wing of the party only exists to make sure the wealthy never lose and we never really win.
and legally all that needs to happen is the Senate has an opportunity to vote to confirm. Obama had a year to say:
"I take no vote to mean no objections, Merrick Garland is on the SC"
From what I know (not much) this is a creative take on it. The Senate needs to confirm. If they don't confirm then the judge is not placed. I welcome expert legal scholars to weigh in but afaik what you said is wrong.
Obama could have temporarily placed the judge but that would have only lasted until the end of his term.