Quote (Black XistenZ @ Mar 23 2022 06:37am)
The GOP can't win elections without appealing to women while it can afford to ingore black voters, it's really as simple as that. One difference, though, is that Barrett was replacing THE female icon of judges, just like Thomas back in the day was replacing THE first and only black SCOTUS judge.
Based on representation grounds, one could argue that a demographic like blacks, which make up one in nine Americans and which are historically underrepresented, deserved some representation on the Supreme Court. Hence, there was a reasonable argument in favor of H.W. Bush specifically nominating a black person to succeed Marshall. Now, however, we're in a situation where about one in nine Americans is black and one in nine SCOTUS judges is black. From a "fair representation" point of view, blacks will actually be quite overrepresented once Brown Jackson is sworn in. Based on representation, quotas or anything like that, there was objectively no need for Biden to narrow his list to exclusively black candidates. He did it to pander to a core constintuency of his party from which he needed enthusiasm and turnout. It's as simple as that.
If Biden had considered candidates of various races and genders, then and only then would it be unfair to criticize his pick for being an affirmative action pick. So in this counterfactual where he doesn't promise to nominate a black woman, it would depend on the actual selection process whether such a criticism would be justified or not. Blasting Republicans over a hypothetically hypocritical criticism seems kinda silly, don't you think?
That's a good point I hadn't really thought about. But the argument could easily be adjusted to "the most qualified judge from the 45-55 age range" , so I think that a qualification-based selection would still be possible.
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Anyway, Brown Jackson seems like a really fine pick, so I should prolly stop wasting so much time complaining about the process that led to her nomination. ^_^
the process or motivation for a pick should only matter if the person is unqualified, not SLIGHTLY, and i use that very liberally, underqualified.
when liberals talked about nominating Obama should HRC win that was silly, this isnt.
in any case anti-abortion stances have been under the microscope for the GOP in nominations for decades, which is no worse or better than demographic motivations. if anything a theocratic single issue is worse than demographic representation.
This post was edited by thesnipa on Mar 23 2022 08:52am