doubleplusundead

I don’t care about the SCOTUS seat.

Breyer is retiring, and Joey Sprinkles gets to appoint somebody. Somebody of a preordained gender and race.

Do I care? Not really.

• It’s an even swap, ideologically. So other than trading a rusty old lefty in for a newer model with fewer miles on her, it’s almost a good idea to put the fear of the God they mostly don’t believe in into the Never Trump swamp creatures, to show them what happens when muh norms and muh principles are too sacrosanct to vote for the Bad Orange Man.
• We probably couldn’t stop it even if we tried. (Unless, that is, Sinema doesn’t care for being called a C-U-Next-Tuesday and decides to show them what that really means.)
• Judicial temperament doesn’t matter. They’ll just lie about it anyway–see how “moderate” Merrick Garland turned out. (Dodged a bullet there – Mega props to Cocaine Mitch for that one.)
• Qualifications barely matter. Case in point, that bloody moron Sotomayor. Whoever Brandon picks can’t possibly be dumber than the supposedly “wise Latina”.
• To the extent that qualifications matter, there are a few qualified-at-least-on-paper individuals to pick from who match the race/gender preference. They can pull from their vaunted Ivy League, and don’t have to go slumming for a left-leaning, higher melanin content Harriet Miers.
• The Court is irredeemably political anyway, and we’re really just counting votes. Whoever was to be appointed, whether of the stated race and gender or not, they were always going to be a solid left vote. The Court gave up actual jurisprudence a long time ago, what with the twelve-pronged by three-tined malarkey “tests” that are actually just retconning a predetermined outcome onto the fact pattern in evidence.
• The stakes are so much lower than other “anti-racist” appointments like the Kamala Harris VP pick, what with the whole line of succession thing potentially giving Harris the nuclear football.

One thing I do rather tire of, is the “Well at least a young [insert ethnicity/gender/sexual proclivity] child has somebody to look up to who looks like them.” Yes, all things being equal I’m all for that. But if I were a [insert ethnicity/gender/sexual proclivity], I’d kind of want the person “representing” me to be competent. What does it tell a young girl that, yes, if you polish some prominent mayor’s knob and cackle nervously at any modestly difficult question, you too can someday be Vice President of the United States, so long as you fit a predetermined identity profile that has nothing to do with your qualifications for office?

Hardly inspiring, if you ask me.