Don’t expect Republicans to go easy on Ketanji Brown Jackson

This is a Ruth Bader Ginsburg moment for the Republicans – with Clarence Thomas ill, the GOP will be more riled than ever by the liberal track record of the Supreme Court nominee

Ketanji Brown Jackson (AP)

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, there was an outpouring of grief across liberal America. Even before she passed away in September 2020, she had become somewhat of a Democratic superhero; in 2019, I bought an RBG doll for my friend’s baby in a shop that sold social justice memorabilia, and in 2016 Ginsburg released a book titled My Own Words that included writings of Ginsburg going right back to the eighth grade. For the month after her death, the huge Brooklyn arena Atlantic-Barclays Centre featured her photo and some of her most famous quotes rather than the usual advertisements for basketball games and music concerts. Her loss during some of the worst days of the pandemic – and while Donald Trump was still president – felt like the final nail in the coffin for liberal optimism.

Then, of course, things rapidly changed. Two months later, the 2020 election results showed a win for Joe Biden. That still gave Trump time to quickly fill Ginsburg’s empty seat on the Supreme Court with a hardline, anti-abortionist conservative: Amy Coney Barrett, a woman who stood against pretty much everything Ginsburg had believed in. This was done despite the fact that Republicans told Obama during his presidency that it was poor form to fill a vacated Supreme Court seat in his final year – and blocked his ability to confirm his pick. Under Trump, there were no gentlemen’s agreements, no concessions to the other side.

So Biden inherited a Supreme Court which had flipped from majority liberal to majority conservative. We’ve already seen the effects of this new imbalance. A law that effectively banned abortions in Texas was challenged at the court, but then allowed to go ahead. Another law that weakened unions was allowed to go ahead. And a Catholic charity was allowed by the court to ban same-sex couples from adopting. The court also invalidated a sitting law that had made charities disclose their donors in California, effectively opening up another route for anonymous money to enter politics – a decision which many believe would mainly benefit Republicans.

It’s easy to imagine why people might be angry at conservatives about the court’s recent decisions, but there’s also a lot of anger toward Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself. Ginsburg knew that if she died while holding her position on the court, Trump would have the opportunity to quickly fill her seat with a lifetime appointment for a far-right judge. She was sick with cancer, but she chose to hold on anyway. Some liberals whispered about her belief in her own celebrity and her short-sightedness. They felt she didn’t put country first when she battled on rather than retiring after her cancer diagnosis. As the newly conservative Supreme Court bashed out right-wing judgment after judgment through 2021, those whisperings became mainstream conversation. Though Ginsburg was still hailed as a civil rights stalwart, she was also often called selfish.

It’s presumably for this reason that liberal Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer elected to stand down in 2022. The 83-year-old, who championed abortion rights early in his career and who has repeatedly challenged the idea that the death penalty is constitutional, presumably had an eye on his legacy when he decided to make way for a younger appointment made by President Biden. And considering Biden had promised on the campaign trail that any Supreme Court appointment he made would be a Black woman, few were surprised by his pick: Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson’s confirmation hearings are under way this week in what should be a high point for Biden and Democrats. Unfortunately, they have coincided with the only other Black member of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, being taken to hospital with a “flu-like” illness. This has certainly changed the temperature in the room – and means that Republicans who are questioning Jackson will be inclined to be especially barbed. Longer-term, it’s unlikely that Thomas would retire with Biden in power, knowing he’d likely be replaced with a liberal-leaning judge, unless he became properly incapacitated. But there are many liberals who would be happy to see him go, especially considering his wife Ginni is a prominent, hardline conservative activist. For conservatives, however, this is their RBG. We can expect that they will now appear more riled than ever by the liberal track record of Jackson – and that their supportive media, such as Fox News, will dial up the heat.