President Trump is once again displaying his legendary sensitivity and tact in the case of his next Supreme Court nomination, as word emerges that during the confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh he was asked why he hadn’t nominated arch-conservative judge Amy Coney-Barrett to the seat. The President reportedly responded that he was “saving” Judge Barrett for when liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, according to Axios.
So that’s pretty gross. Like putting “dibs” on your grandpa’s fishing pole when he’s having medical problems.
Of course, that’s pretty standard Trump stuff. He hasn’t had a conscience since long before he tried to use eminent domain to force an elderly widow from her home so he could build a limousine waiting area for a casino, long before he fought Native American tribes in court over their right to use their own land for casinos that would have competed with his and told the courts that they “don’t look Indian” to him — implying they were faking their heritage.
Trump’s conscience was missing, in fact, all the way back before he took out full-page ads in even major newspaper in New York calling for the execution of the so-called Central Park Five, a group of young men of color accused of raping a jogger in the park in the 1980s, and Trump’s lack of a conscience prevented him from ever acknowledging that the five were acquitted and completely exonerated through the use of DNA evidence. He still publicly mused that they must have been up to something:
@CoachClintSwan Tell me, what were they doing in the Park, playing checkers?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2013
Why should his thoughts on perhaps the most legendary Justice to ever grace the Supreme Court bench be any different? We couldn’t possibly have expected that Trump would show deference to a woman who got part of the Social Security Act change in a case she argued as a lawyer, a woman whose confirmation by the Senate was 96–3, with the only nays coming from Jesse Helms, Don Nickles, and Bob Smith — a man who once demonstrated his view of abortion by stabbing a plastic doll on the Senate floor with a pair of scissors over and over.
As for Amy Coney-Barrett: She would be a conservative Republican’s dream — her own anti-abortion stance was what gave Trump pause, since he thought perhaps Republicans would make more gains in the 2018 midterms and he wouldn’t have to count on the votes of Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.
So once again, Mr. President, way to lower the bar for human decency. The sweetest justice of all would see Trump embroiled in a Supreme Court case for his presidency, with Ginsburg writing the majority opinion.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
