(RightWing.org) – For over two decades, the Democratic Party has played with fire. They fanned the flames of identity politics for political gain as they tried to position themselves as champions of minorities, women, LGBTQ, and the poor. At the same time, it became the party of corporate America. The Left’s identity politics agenda was a thinly veiled disguise to use people groups to acquire power without offering real solutions to America’s challenges.
It took 20 years, but America is finally figuring out the Democratic playbook. Thanks to the Left overplaying its hand the last few years, voters are beginning to see Democrats for who they really are, not what the Left wants the country to see. The latest fiasco involves President Joe Biden’s pledge to only consider a black woman to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Now, the White House is trying to make a case for the president’s position. Yet, administration officials are struggling to provide answers that make sense.
Diversity Is Good, But Not at the Exclusion of Qualified Individuals
Over the last 50 years, America has made incredible strides to fulfill the vision that we are a country striving to become a more perfect union. Those words are enshrined in the opening sentence of the US Constitution. The Civil Rights Act of the 1960s began the shift of two centuries of wrongs against black Americans. Women have made incredible strides in the workplace and society, too.
Are things the absolute best they can be? No, they are not and never will be so long as imperfect human beings are around. That brings us to the political world where some people, primarily Democrats, prefer to see the world through identity politics. Merriam-Webster defines identity politics as a group of people (racial, religious, gender, etc.) who promote their own concerns over the concerns of any larger political group, i.e. America at large. It’s built largely around perceived or real injustices.
So, here we are… in January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his intention to retire at the end of the term in late June or early July. President Biden says he will only consider a black woman as a replacement to diversify the court. On the surface, that’s not a bad thing. Yet, the pledge is also detrimental to the country for several reasons.
The exclusionary practice has been banned by the SCOTUS when it comes to hiring practices and admissions standards to colleges. In essence, he’s filling a quota, and he’s free to do that as the law doesn’t apply to Supreme Court appointments. Still, it runs contrary to the American value of fairness, and some Constitutional scholars question Biden’s wisdom on this issue.
Americans Don’t Agree With Biden
No one is arguing that diversity in government is a bad thing. It’s just the opposite. No one wants to be discriminated against based on the color of one’s skin or one’s gender. Still, Biden’s unprecedented action to only consider a black woman isn’t popular with the public. In an ABC poll, only 36% stated the president’s pledge was a good idea. The poll also found that 55% believe nominating a black woman is not an important criterion for serving on the SCOTUS.
The poll also suggested that most people aren’t comfortable when they come across perceived or real threshold exclusions. The most qualified person should be chosen, and most times even that is a subjective standard.
What Biden did was unfairly open up a line of attack against him and his nominee. Other presidents knew they wanted to choose a woman or a minority for the bench. Sandra Day O’Connor, Clarence Thomas, and Sonia Sotomayor all come to mind. Still, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama evaluated many other candidates from diverse backgrounds. Therein lies the difference between them and Biden.
White House Struggles to Answer Questions
On Thursday, February 17, a CBS reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about a new Club for Growth commercial. It questioned why Biden ignored other qualified minority judges and concluded that they aren’t black women. The commercial said that “Biden chose radical racial politics instead of qualified judges.”
When asked to respond, all Psaki could do was dance around the question. She mumbled on about 230 years of SCOTUS history, and not a single black woman served on the nation’s highest court. She added that perhaps the administration would consider other minorities if a vacancy on the high court opened during the next three years.
Here’s the main point… we are all Americans. Diversity should be represented on the Supreme Court. Yet, justices are accountable to the US Constitution. Biden risks tainting the SCOTUS and forcing his nominee for a time to defend her perspectives from unfair or undue criticism. Perhaps most importantly, his words and actions could wrongly tarnish the court as another political entity.
As the White House continues to show, it can’t defend its position when America believes something is wrong.
Don Purdum, Independent Political Analyst
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