This Is The GOP

 

This is the Affirmative Action pick for Vice President. If you think this is bad, just wait til their Affirmative Action pick for the Supreme Court is handed a lifetime appointment. pic.twitter.com/XArHeTKwct

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) March 21, 2022

You might know Charlie Kirk from being a big-headed manchild without a college degree who talks to conservative youth about white supremacist nonsense, or, if you're lucky, you don't know this SOB at all.

What I do know is that the elected Vice-President of the United States has been the DA for San Francisco, the AG for the state of California, and a US Senator. That's not affirmative action, those are qualifications. That's actual work at actual jobs of importance. In the way that being a well-paid dupe peddling lies to dopes is not work. She works to make things suck less. Charlie Kirk exists to make things suck more.

Judge Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is a highly educated legal professional who clerked with Justice Breyer and went on to an established judicial career. She has significant experience both as a defense lawyer and a judge, and has been rated by her peers (not Charlie Kirk, who is certainly not one of those) as well-qualified. 

There shouldn't need to be an answer to the mindless burblings of a racist fool, but I'm of the mind that you should call these assholes out loudly and often. And the reason is, he's only foghorning the racism to the folks too dim to hear the subtle dog-whistles blown by the more legitimate GOP spokes-cretins. (Brit Hume also made a slightly snide allusion to whether VP Harris "ticked boxes" today. Did he mean a racial box? Is he putting down her qualifications, as if no presidential ticket in history ever did not have certain voter demographic considerations in mind?)

It's a little defensive and maybe even shrill when Sen. Lindsey Graham has to tell us that the GOP are "used to" being called racists. But why have they never taken the hint and looked at why that keeps happening, especially when they elected a whole birther as president and are now using QAnon tropes against a Black woman? 

When they are supported by people who want to carry Confederate flags and think "Black Lives Matter" is a radical statement, and they cater to that ethos, maybe there's a pretty good reason they are being called that. When GOP allegations regarding "voter fraud" all seem to point to concern about turnout in places where people of color vote, they aren't really hiding anything. 

When Sen, Marsha Blackburn wonders if Judge Jackson is carrying a hidden CRT agenda through a handful of what I will generously call "misunderstandings" about what any of her prior statements mean, it's hard not to believe she is just participating in culture war axe-grinding, rather than a good-faith discussion of what Jackson's record actually shows. 

And somehow, Cruz, Sasse, and Cotton were all in their own various ways, even worse. 

This confirmation hearing is supposed to be about the nominee, and yet it is ostensibly about the Republican party and how, at a 6-3 conservative advantage on the court, they nonetheless need to grandstand about the courts. It's about the GOP. And yes, ok. We see them.

We really do.