Trump Nominates Amy Coney Barrett to SCOTUS; Disasters Ensue
On This Day In 2020
Supreme hypocrisy: Remember how Mitch McConnell (R-KY) prevented Obama from appointing a justice to the Supreme Court because 2016 was an “election year?” Well, guess what happened when another Supreme Court seat opened up in 2020? This time, it wasn’t nine months away from the election as it had been in Obama’s case…this time it was only five weeks before. Well, according to the GOP, there are different rules if Donald Trump is in office.
OTDI 2020, Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to fill the seat left vacant by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. The GOP rushed through the confirmation process before the election to ensure Trump could secure another right-wing seat on the court for a generation. It was one of the fastest confirmations in history. And it was reminiscent of how the Trump Administration had forced the FBI to conduct a very-rushed (and thus meaningless) “investigation” of Brett Kavanaugh two years earlier.
Postscript: Trump threw a party to celebrate her nomination, including portions of which were held indoors. This was, to be blunt, a very stupid thing to do in the fall of 2020. So, unsurprisingly, his party did turn into a Covid super-spreader event. Chris Christie, many White House staffers, and even both Melania and Donald Trump likely contracted Covid there.
But then it got worse -- for the long-term, for American citizens -- because Coney Barrett went on to join some of the most extreme and conservative rulings from the Supreme Court in generations. Those have included, of course, the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Note: Coney Barrett was only 48 when she was nominated; she might still be there until the 2060s.
Oh, btw, a very conservative justice like ACB couldn't have gotten through a bipartisan confirmation/approvals process in years past. Trump would have had to nominate somebody a bit more acceptable to liberals also. But the GOP had changed the rules for SCOTUS nominees, meaning she could skate by with approval only from the GOP. That leads to "radicals" (to use a favorite Trumpism) running the show.
Just a reminder: Big national societal changes like these don’t usually “just happen.” They often happen because that’s the way the winner of the presidential election wants them to happen. Something to keep in mind on November 5th.
Dive Deeper
SCOTUSblog’s coverage of the nomination and confirmation hearings
CNN gives a rundown of Trump's Covid party
Fauci’s view on Trump’s superspreader