Sumantra Maitra of the Federalist examines the political Left’s attacks on Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Susan Hennessey of Lawfare recently tweeted court-packing is essential for Democrats to save the court. “Reluctantly,” she argues, because of Republicans’ “smash and grab” approach, it’s the only way to save democracy!
Unfortunately, Hennessey’s hyperbolic reaction isn’t alone. Articles and opinion pieces from the corporate media nearly universally oppose the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Such laments include charges Barrett is “anti-feminist,” “anti-democratic,” and that the Supreme Court should reflect the country in racial and sexual diversity.
Given the job of a Supreme Court justice is not to interpret the law or make new laws, but to adjudicate based on the existing text, it is baffling why these charges are being mounted. The job of a judge isn’t supposed to be a feminist activist, or a Democrat, or even to reflect the existing demographics.
Beyond all the hyperventilating, broad themes emerge. Barrett’s nomination has made it clear leftists desire power for the sake of power, and their superficial diversity rhetoric simply serves as a means to gain that power. For all the talk of saving institutionalism and norms, the reality is that leftists want to be in charge of the institutions and of setting the norms.
Sooner or later, as “democracy” is now considered synonymous with social liberalism, everything conservatives do will be considered a threat to the republic by a credentialled class of leftists.
Diversity is quickly becoming their favorite sort of credentialism — one that increasingly leads one particular set of people into the corridors of power. Diversity is only for those who fit the acceptable bill as liberal, Democrat, or feminist. To be sure, for today’s leftists, it matters not that Barrett is a woman from the middle class and the first non-Ivy League JD who would be in the Supreme Court.
