Blind Justice or the Weekend Lineup at MSNBC?
Biden's SCOTUS appointment, whomever it is, will challenge the Scalia Principle - that the Constitution says what it says and doesn't say what it doesn't say.
It is tempting to say that Biden gains nothing in swapping a liberal justice for another liberal justice, but that ignores the fact that judges are no longer “liberal”, at least not in the historical sense.
Biden’s callous promise to “put a black woman on the Supreme Court” had a primary and a secondary purpose, and both had very little to do with “diversity” or making the court “look like America”.
The primary purpose rested with the Jim Clyburn wing of the Democrat party, a wing consisting of leftists obsessed with racial and identity politics.
Biden made a Faustian bargain with them for the sole purpose of securing their support to put Ole China Joe in the White House. Had it not been for Clyburn’s help in the South Carolina primaries, Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee.
The secondary purpose was the advancement of a radical leftist agenda through the workings of the Supreme Court and the best way to do it is to seat a radical activist jurist on the court.
Implementing identity politics at this level has the potential to tear the highest court in the land apart, and in doing so, destroy two and a half centuries of constitutional jurisprudence. This has the potential to do far more damage than any other hairbrained Democrat scheme – more than court packing, rotating justices, term limits or any other departure from the traditional workings of the Court.
Such a crass political move implies there is black justice, white justice, poor justice, rich justice, male, female, and non-binary justice – all separate and apart from each other – rather than the constitutional justice for all.
Identity would then necessarily be a factor in every decision, pretty much assuring unequal outcomes.
Justice would no longer be blind.
If justice isn’t blind, it isn’t justice.
It is just politics, complete with the arbitrary and capricious nature of smoke-filled backroom deals and the bare-knuckled brawling.
If justice goes woke, it might as well be dead.
This move could well make radical activism a standard feature of the court and further deepen the divisions between the factions that already exist. Rather than colleagues with different views who can agree to disagree with decorum, the Court could be split into warring camps, thereby paralyzing the court itself.
The court would become what the Democrats have long wanted – a non-elected super legislative, a supreme branch of government exempted from checks and balances with decisions brewed up by black-robed shamans.
I imagine something like the current 50/50 Senate but with no tiebreaker and only nine members and the Chuck Schumer and Cocaine Mitch factions duking it out from opposite corners.
Either that, or a “swing” justice – like John Roberts – could evolve into a de facto monarch, the entire American system of jurisprudence revolving around the decisions, loyalties, and temperament of one person.
As Obama used to love saying, “That’s not who we are.”
He would never say that about this situation, but if he did, it would be the first time he was right.
Supreme Court justices are not there to make new law, the court is not some mysterious cabal of witches and warlocks responsible for churning out bespoke justice like suits from a Saville Row tailor. Their role is to impartially weigh and measure existing law against the standard - the words, the history, and the traditions of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Merrick Garland, a man of no discernable values or beliefs other than following Democrat orders, would have been a disastrous appointment to the Court – but he is still useful to the left’s agenda. His appointment to Attorney General opened a slot for Ketanji Brown Jackson, a black woman whom the Democrats have targeted for elevation to the Supreme Court.
I don’t know a lot about her history, just that the race and “social justice” obsessed leftist loons on MSNBC and CNN love her, so there is that as in indicator of the future. No real surprise here but the confirmation vote was 53-44, with GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski voting with Democrats, making her pretty much pre-cleared to cruise into a SCOTUS seat, should Biden’s handlers pick her.
One can understand that people (judges) look at the law in different ways, but as Anton Scalia once said, our Constitution “says what it says and doesn’t say what it doesn’t say”.
Leftist jurists these days believe the Constitution is a manual for the racism of white supremacy in the United States, so Biden’s pick, whomever it winds up being, will pull SCOTUS even farther in that direction.
SCOTUS could wind up looking less like America and more like the weekend lineup at MSNBC.