It’s Not Just a Culture War. Republicans are Escalating Their Politics of Fear and Resentment

In the late 1970’s Republicans were able to galvanize the religious right to engage more forcefully in politics by exploiting the issue of abortion. For over 40 years, people have wondered what the GOP will do to keep those voters engaged when/if they are actually successful in overturning Roe v Wade. The prospect of that happening very soon looms as we await the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Several things have happened in the last few weeks that help us answer the question about where Republicans go from here:

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) referred to the Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut – which legalized the right to birth control – as “Constitutionally unsound.”

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) used his time during the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to make the case that Obergefell v. Hodges – which legalized marriage equality – had been wrongly decided.

Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) said that the Supreme Court decision in Loving v Virginia – which legalized interracial marriage – should have been left up to the states to decide.

Since none of those senators is the sharpest knife in the drawer, you have to wonder if there is someone behind the scenes organizing this effort, because those particular Supreme Court decisions have some things in common.

We normally don’t hear much about the 9th Amendment to the Constitution – which is short and sweet. It says simply that, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In other words, Americans retain rights that aren’t specifically named in the Constitution, for example: the right to travel, the right to vote, the right to keep personal matters private. Those are referred to as “unenumerated rights.”

The 1965 Griswold v Connecticut case was the first time the court recognized the unenumerated right to privacy.

Griswold became the building block for other noteworthy Supreme Court cases that much of the GOP disapproves of, from Roe v. Wade in 1973 to the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision that ruled state laws banning “homosexual sodomy” were unconstitutional to the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

What these Republicans are challenging is not only the right to reproductive choice, but the right to privacy in the bedroom and marriage equality. It’s also worth noting that red states are also in the midst of passing laws that deny the right to vote and the right to travel.

The ruling in Loving v Virginia was actually based on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. But Jamele Bouie ties all of these together.

They represent a worldview not simply of conservative social values but of the proper organization of America’s political and constitutional order.

The great legal and political advance of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s was the creation of a universal baseline for civil and political rights…With that in mind, one way to understand the agenda of much of the modern Republican Party…is that it is an attempt to make rights contingent again.

If successful, Republicans would effectively handcuff the federal government’s ability, either through legislation or through the courts, to establish and maintain that universal baseline for civil and political rights. And it would mean a return to the world as it was when the standard-bearers for hierarchy — whether of race or of gender or of class — had much freer rein to dominate as they saw fit.

So if you want to know where the Republican Party is headed when/if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, there you have it. They will juice up their base by promising to return to a world where rights are contingent and white heterosexual men have “free rein to dominate as they see fit.”

Personally, I have always rejected this kind of “slippery slope” argument, but David Roberts wrote a twitter thread that has me reconsidering that position. He suggested that, for Republicans, reactionary backlash politics is all about escalation.

Once they outlaw abortion they’ll go after birth control. Once trans people are driven underground they’ll go after gay people. It won’t stop.

Look at Trump rally crowds: they are addicted to the thrill of surrendering themselves & their own judgement to mob anger. They will always want & need more — more blood, more outsiders on which to inflict pain, more enemies. The beast must be continuously fed.

The not-so-secret secret about these people is, they’re not happy. They are tossed on a sea of fear & resentment & immersed in a culture that offers them no tools to self-reflect, to identify or deal with these fears. They reject fear as weak, but they can’t escape it.

The only thing that quiets that inner voice is the white-noise thrill of being part of a mob. It externalizes all that fear — locates it in the immigrants, or the libs, or the gays — & temporarily quells it through group violence…

This is the central thing I hope everyone understands about Trumpism: it is driven by the psychology of fear & resentment. It’s not seeking particular policy goals that will satisfy it. It requires escalation, more enemies, more victims, bigger mobs, without end.

As Adam Sewer wrote back in 2018, “the cruelty is the point.”

It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds [Trump’s] most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright.

This is why I have such disdain for the neo-New Democrats who keep insisting that we should ignore the culture wars Republican attacks on civil/human rights. My message to them would be the same as the warning Rosa Parks gave to Bob Zellner in the movie Son of the South: “There’s gonna come a time when something really bad happens and you’re gonna have to decide which side you’re on. Not choosing is a choice.”

Senate Republicans Put Our National Security at Risk

The GOP is obstructing Biden administration appointments to key positions just to pad their credentials as anti-Biden.

On September 15, 2021, the Senate Foreign Relations committee held a hearing to consider five Biden administration nominees for important positions in the State Department. Although Senator Bob Menendez on New Jersey is the chairman of the committee, he asked Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware to preside over the hearing that day. You can read a transcript of the hearing here.

As you might imagine, it’s difficult to get into too much depth with any particular nominee when there are five nominees to consider, and that was certainly the case in this hearing. Dr. C.S. Eliot Kang, a longtime employee of the State Department who was nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, received minimal questioning. The questions mainly concerned Iran and North Korea. His credentials and qualifications did not come under scrutiny.

And that’s not surprising if you look at his work history.

He’s been serving in the position in an acting role since Inauguration Day. He also had spells as the acting secretary during the Obama and Trump administrations. He began his career at the department in 2003, when he was hired by the Bush administration. He spent the bulk of the Obama administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs.

Rather than spending a lot of time questioning Dr. Kang directly, the Republicans preferred to have him provide written responses to their inquiries, and his responses are listed at the end of the hearing transcript. The topics are substantive in nature. It doesn’t appear that any senators had reservations about Kang.

The committee reported his nomination favorably to the full Senate in March 8, 2022. Nonetheless, the Democrats had to file cloture to overcome an objection to Kang.  In an unusual move, on March 24, there was an unanimous consent agreement waiving the mandatory quorum required under Rule XXII (governing the filibuster). ” In the end, even though 47 Republican senators voted to sustain the filibuster on Tuesday, cloture was successfully achieved at 52 votes.

This was quickly followed by the actual confirmation vote. The tally on that was 52-46. So why did 46 Republicans vote against Kang’s confirmation?

The general explanation for this is just that Republicans do not want to vote in favor of Biden nominees. They don’t even want to assent to votes on Biden nominees. This includes positions they know must be filled and candidates they agree are well qualified. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed his caucus to object and filibuster even as he eased the path to Kang’s confirmation by waiving the quorum requirement. By voting against Kang twice (once on cloture and once on confirmation), Senate Republicans padded their record for opposing the Biden administration without having any influence beside needless delay.

Obviously, our national security isn’t much of a consideration for the Republicans here.  They don’t care if we have a confirmed secretary dealing with nonproliferation issues at a time when there is a lot of concern about Iran and North Korea, as well as the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine. They certainly don’t care about Dr. Kang’s feelings after being rejected by nearly half the Senate.

Dr. Kang is not unique. There were actually three additional nominees who were obstructed by Republicans, including James O’Brien for State Department sanctions coordinator, Julieta Valls Noyes for assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and Erin McKee, for assistant administrator for Europe and Eurasia at USAID. All these positions are highly relevant to the crisis in Ukraine.

Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida objected to Kang, O’Brien and Valls Noyes, citing an unrelated issue with Cuba, while Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas didn’t even deign to offer an explanation for his opposition to McKee.

I mention all this not because I think the American people will care, but just because I like to document the atrocities.

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 256

Colbert’s in the house. So let’s see what he has to say:

This is no laughing matter:

I wish I felt the need to shelter to you all to the brutal reality, but I can’t. I have so many thoughts. Very few of them even remotely favorable to average Russians or to the the Putin dictatorship. NATO and EU are next. Don’t be fooled. Trump wants Russian manufactured compromat on the Biden family for a reason. He’s an asset, and Putin’s longer term goals are impossible with US leadership who remember the Cold War era, and who are smart enough to understand what Putin can and cannot accomplish. I am partially Slavic (western), and I feel a kinship to my Ukraniian counterparts. This war must end, on favorable Ukrainian terms. Hang in there.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz Corruptly Obstructed a Joint Session of Congress

A federal district court judge in California has determined that the ex-president most likely committed a criminal conspiracy on January 6.

I caution against too excited about Federal District Court rulings. District Court judges issue surprising rulings all the time that are subsequently overturned by an Appeals Court or the Supreme Court. Still, it’s notable that David Carter, a Clinton-appointed judge from California, has ruled that “based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021.”

The remarkable ruling may be the first in history in which a federal judge determined a president, while in office, appeared to commit a crime. The decision has no direct role in whether Trump will be charged criminally but could increase pressure on the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Merrick Garland, to conduct an aggressive investigation that could lead to such charges.

The case involves John Eastman, a longtime associate of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The two apparently conspired together to carry out a coup d’etat that would have disregarded the certified election results from 2020 and left President Trump in office for an illegitimate second term. Eastman is attempting to shield 101 emails from the House committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021. Judge Carter agreed that eleven of those emails are protected by attorney-client privilege but insisted the rest must be turned over because of the crime-fraud exception. In other words, a lawyer cannot engage in a criminal conspiracy with his client and then hide the evidence from investigators.

If Eastman appeals Carter’s ruling, it will go to the left-leaning Ninth District Court of Appeals. It’s highly unlikely to be reversed by that Court. Eastman will have better odds at the Supreme Court, but victory should still be considered a long shot. His argument will be that he considered existing law unconstitutional, but Judge Carter strongly rebutted this excuse.

Carter, who sits in Los Angeles and is an appointee of President Bill Clinton, acknowledged long-shot arguments by Eastman that the 1887 law governing the tallying and certification of electoral votes was at odds with the Constitution. However, the judge said that did not permit Trump the right to defy the statute or to seek to persuade [Vice-President Mike] Pence to circumvent it.

“Believing the Electoral Count Act was unconstitutional did not give President Trump license to violate it,” Carter wrote. “Disagreeing with the law entitled President Trump to seek a remedy in court, not to disrupt a constitutionally-mandated process. And President Trump knew how to pursue election claims in court — after filing and losing more than sixty suits, this plan was a last-ditch attempt to secure the Presidency by any means.”

However the Supreme Court rules, assuming they even hear the case, a marker has now been put down. Trump, more likely than not, committed a serious felonious crime. The Justice Department will definitely feel more pressure to press charges, but they’ll also have more confidence that they can win a conviction.

And if Trump and Eastman engaged in a criminal conspiracy, then Ted Cruz is also implicated.

On Jan. 2, 2021, Cruz unveiled his plan for states to start an “emergency 10-day audit,”backed by 10 other senators. The idea was met with ridicule even from some of Trump’s most vociferous supporters…

…Eastman, meanwhile, appeared at the Jan. 6 “Save America” rally at the Ellipse, where he in effect embraced the Cruz plan. “All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at one o’clock, he let the legislatures of the states look into this,” Eastman said.

Once it is established that this plot was criminal in nature, everyone involved in concocting it is vulnerable to prosecution. A District Court opinion is not the final say on that, but it definitely strengthens the hand of anyone seeking justice.

Biden Knows What He’s Doing With Putin

There can be no American strategy for the war in Ukraine that involves Putin remaining in power in Russia.

Tyler Pager and Matt Viser of the Washington Post are alarmed that President Biden announced, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power” while talking about Vladimir Putin during a 27-minute speech in Warsaw, Poland on Saturday. The statement, which was not in Biden’s prepared remarks, is being treated as a gaffe, and Pager and Viser quickly exploited an opportunity to highlight a greatest hits of gaffes from Biden’s political career.

It’s possible that Biden didn’t know what he was doing. It’s also possible that his statement was entirely purposeful. In either case, David Rothkopf hit the nail on the head with his reaction.

“There is within Biden’s comment a kernel of truth,” Rothkopf said. “Vladimir Putin can’t lay waste to a country, kill tens of thousands of civilians, commit serial war crimes and expect to be welcomed back into the community of nations. If Russia wants to be part of the community of nations, then they are going to have to produce change.”

This is precisely right. Pager and Viser bring out a host of foreign experts who are critical of Biden for saying something so provocative, and there are real reasons to wonder if it was advisable to send such an uncompromising message to Putin. But there can be no resumption of the status quo ante. Russia is now an isolated, pariah state. It will remain so as long as Putin is in power. There can be no lifting of sanctions or concessions of territory (unless Ukraine insists on conceding it), and no reward or face-saving whatsoever for what Putin has done.

This isn’t just some didactic position of America or NATO or the West. Putin is not a viable future leader of Russia from a Russian perspective. He has brought complete disaster upon his country and the only way the country can begin a process of recovery is with fresh leadership. They have to bring it about, and hearing the U.S. president make this point clear will help clarify things.

Look how ridiculous Michael O’Hanlon’s criticism appears in the context of reasonable end games to this conflict:

“What it tells me, and worries me, is that the top team is not thinking about plausible war termination,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book “The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S. Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint.

“If they were, Biden’s head wouldn’t be in a place where he’s saying, ‘Putin must go.’ The only way to get to war termination is to negotiate with this guy,” O’Hanlon said.

“When you say this guy must go you’ve essentially declared you’re not going to do business with him,” he added. “However appealing at an emotional level, it’s not going to happen. We can’t control it, and it probably won’t take place anytime soon.”

This is precisely wrong. The goal here is not to negotiate an end to the war. If Ukraine wants to make concessions to Putin which allow him to keep huge chunks of their country, pay no price for the damage he’s done, do nothing to rebuild Ukraine’s flattened cities, and sit back while the sanctions are lifted, then they can make that call themselves. No outsider, and certainly no allies, should press that kind of decision on them.

The goal here is for Russia to leave Ukraine entirely, including Crimea and Dombas, and pay serious reparations. The second goal is for Russia to rejoin the community of nations, which means normal diplomatic and economic relationships, and this is simply never going to be possible with Putin in charge.

Russian business leaders probably understand this. Russian military leadership probably understands this. And they are the ones who will have to remove Putin from power and negotiate the peace.

There are many carrots the West has to offer Russia’s establishment. Everything can be on the table, including defense arrangements and economic integration. The West did not start this war but it isn’t in the West’s interests to end it on any terms other than victory and vindication for Ukraine, and that is not going to happen until Russia has new leadership.

So, when foreign policy experts get upset that Putin now has less incentive to negotiate, you have to consider how ridiculous it is to think Putin would make the necessary concessions. If he were somehow willing, which is laughable, he’d have to resign in disgrace the next day. What Biden said didn’t change that.

Now, a trapped and cornered Putin may very well be extraordinarily dangerous, and if Biden made him feel even more cornered than it could lead to a mass extinction level event. But the fact that Putin puts all of humanity under such a threat is all the more reason why the only solution is his removal from power. Do his generals want to start a nuclear armageddon to preserve Putin in power? If not, then they should get busy quietly negotiating with the West for a sweet post-Putin deal.

I think Biden knows what he’s doing.

Over the past few weeks, Biden’s rhetoric on Putin — a man he once recounted telling to his face, “I don’t think you have a soul” — has become increasingly pointed. He has called him a “butcher” “pure thug” and a “murderous dictator.” So saying that he should be removed from power could viewed as the logical next step.

It also is in line with Biden at times articulating policy before his aides are ready. Last week, he called Putin a “war criminal,” which White House aides quickly said was simply him “speaking from the heart.” But within a few days, U.S. policy changed as [Secretary of State Anthony] Blinken also called Putin a war criminal and released a formal assessment on war crimes committed by Russia.

He’s not taking to Putin. He’s talking to the Russians with the power to remove Putin. And that’s the right strategy.

But, yes, this is the most dangerous imaginable business, and no human alive could act at all if they needed perfect confidence that their actions won’t lead to the end of the world. Biden is taking risks, big risks. But those risks make sense.

Why Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Confirmation is a Non-Event

It will be a long time before she’ll have real influence on the law.

One advantage of being on vacation last week is that I missed the entirety of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. I really had no interest in watching them anyway since there was no suspense. I easily could have predicted they’d be a shit show, and they were.

In fact, the only reason I might have wanted to watch is to take pride in seeing the first black woman go through the process of being confirmed to the highest court, but I knew the Republicans would strip the proceedings of all joy, and they did.

There won’t be much joy once she’s sitting on the Court either, since she’ll be part of a minority of three. I don’t get much thrill out of reading brilliant dissents. Despite the significance of her nomination, it’s pretty much a non-event. Maybe somewhere down the line, she’ll be in the majority or at least join the majority on something and write some stirring decisions.

I do hope that she can bring an immediate perspective that can be improvement over Justice Breyer. But I’m too despondent about the state of the Court, and the nation, to have much enthusiasm for the spectacle.

The real drama is related to Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni, who is fucking crazy. But, again, I don’t expect anything positive to come from it. It’s just another demoralizing example of the lack of consequences for people in power who deserve punishment and receive none.

Saturday Painting Palooza Vol.867

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Victorian era house. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.


I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas panel.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.


Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I have started to paint the siding and trim. These will remain in dark colors similar to what is seen here. I can’t wait to paint the contrasting lit portions of the structure.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.


I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

Even in a Party Filled With Deplorables, Tom Cotton Stands Out

Several of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to run for president in 2024. As such, they used their time during the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Jackson Brown to broadcast their platforms. I’ve already mentioned that the so-called “lane” Josh Hawley is carving out for himself is one that makes an appeal not only to the January 6 insurrectionists, but also to the QAnoners.

It is also clear that Tom Cotton plans to run for president in 2024. It therefore came as no surprise that, on his first day of questioning, the senator from Arkansas zeroed in on one of his favorite topics: that the United States has an “under-incarceration” problem. After going through statistics on the number of violent crimes (murder, rapes, assaults) that are never solved, he asked Judge Jackson, “Do you think we imprison too many violent criminals, or not enough?”

Of course, what Cotton completely ignores is that, when activists talk about this country’s over-incarceration problem, they are not referring to violence crimes, but a combination of the so-called “war on drugs” and the disproportionate way that people of color are targeted for imprisonment.

The way that Cotton treated Judge Jackson with utter contempt is indicative of the racism that underlies his lust for locking up people of color. It was also on display during a recent speech he gave at the Reagan Presidential Library.

In many Democratic-run cities, prosecutors simply refuse to prosecute. These so-called “progressive” or “Soros prosecutors” haven’t just abused prosecutorial discretion, they’ve embraced prosecutorial nullification, ruling entire categories of serious crimes out of bounds for prosecution.

They’ve contributed to the worst increase in murder rates on record and the most drug-overdose deaths ever. There’s only one answer to these radicals: Republicans must work to recall, remove, and replace every last Soros prosecutor in America.

This growing crime wave is also fueled by the single largest exodus of criminals from jail in our history. The U.S. prison population dropped by more than 400,000 inmates in 2020 alone.

Much of this decline was motivated by the faddish claim that our nation has an “over-incarceration problem.” In fact, we have an under-incarceration problem, because nearly half of all murders and the vast majority of other crimes go unsolved…

It’s time to declare a new war on crime that won’t stop until the carnage stops. We shouldn’t stop until little kids in Chicago and Baltimore are no longer gunned down on their way to school, until fentanyl overdoses are no longer the leading cause of death for our young people, and until law-abiding citizens can walk our city streets without fear of being the next victim on the evening news.

The so-called “Soros prosecutors,” like Rachel Rollins from Suffolk County, MA, took note of things like the fact that “Seventeen of the 25 most frequently filed charges in criminal court are nonviolent motor vehicle, drug, and property offenses.” They recognized that a “carceral approach” to these crimes is not only ineffective and expensive, but it creates collateral harms. As a result:

In place of traditional criminal justice system outcomes…criminal justice practitioners and policymakers are working in collaboration with community partners to develop and implement innovative, evidence-driven diversionary alternatives that data show are more likely to promote safer and healthier communities.

In other words, they’re being smart on crime.

It is interesting to note that Cotton specifically mentions the cities of Chicago and Baltimore when fear-mongering about violent crime. A recent study by the Third Way found that the murder rate in his home state of Arkansas is even higher than Illinois and Maryland. As a matter of fact, this is what they reported:

We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts.

Perhaps Senator Cotton should spend less time railing about Chicago and Baltimore and more time trying to figure out what is happening in his home state of Arkansas.

It was, however, the kind of solution Cotton pointed to during his speech at the Reagan library that is most disturbing.

Here we can take inspiration once again from Old Hickory [Andrew Jackson]. In 1818, criminals and marauders used lawless portions of Spanish Florida as bases to attack and kill American citizens. In response, General Jackson invaded Spanish territory, rooted out those responsible, and then conquered the Spanish capital just for good measure. We should show the same resolve in the face of crime and lawlessness today.

This is a perfect example of why Republicans want to take control of re-writing our history. Cotton is referring to the First Seminole War, when Florida was still a Spanish colony. Here’s what really happened:

The Seminoles were largely of Creek origin and lived in villages in northern Florida. The area was also home to a number of Africans, free African Americans, and runaway African American slaves, all of whom were known as Black Seminoles. The Seminoles and Black Seminoles were aligned with the British against the Americans before and during the War of 1812 and were the targets of frequent raids by militias from Georgia, who sought runaway slaves as well as land and cattle. In 1816, U.S. soldiers destroyed a garrison that was a refuge for escaped slaves, killing some 270 people. The Seminoles subsequently began raiding American settlements along the Georgia–Florida border. In what many writers identify as the beginning of the First Seminole War, in November 1817, U.S. soldiers attacked the Seminole village of Fowltown (near present-day Bainbridge, Georgia), and a battle ensued. In retaliation, a group of Seminoles laid siege to a boat carrying reinforcements to Fort Scott on the Apalachicola River and killed 43 men, women, and children.

After Jackson’s army invaded Florida, Spain went on to cede the territory to the United States and, of course as president, Jackson worked to have the Indian Removal Act passed by Congress – launching the Trail of Tears. Most Seminoles and Black Seminoles were eventually relocated from Florida to reservations in the west.

It is absolutely appalling that Tom Cotton finds inspiration for his “war on crime” from this story. But that probably shouldn’t come as a surprise after he advocated for the use of our military in response to the George Floyd protests.

It is clear that the current iteration of the Republican Party is home to some seriously deplorable people. Many of them are nothing but incompetent performative trolls. But Cotton is different. He is a calculating, sociopathic bigot – which makes him even more dangerous.

Be an Ally Like Cory Booker

During the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have accused her of supporting efforts to claim that all infants are racist, being soft on child pornographers and generally being soft on crime.

Republicans like Cruz, Hawley and Kennedy couched their racist attacks in a thin veneer of respectability, while Cotton was openly aggressive and contemptuous of Jackson. She occasionally showed hints of anger, but handled it all with incredible competence, grace and dignity. This comparison is worth noting:

I was reminded of this quote from Jonathan Chait about the movie “Twelve Years a Slave.”

Notably, the most horrific torture depicted in 12 Years a Slave is set in motion when the protagonist, Solomon Northup, offers up to his master engineering knowledge he acquired as a free man, thereby showing up his enraged white overseer. It was precisely Northup’s calm, dignified competence in the scene that so enraged his oppressor. The social system embedded within slavery as depicted in the film is one that survived long past the Emancipation Proclamation – the one that resulted in the murder of Emmett Till a century after Northup published his autobiography. It’s a system in which the most unforgivable crime was for an African-American to presume [herself] an equal to — or, heaven forbid, better than — a white person.

Beyond the outright racism directed at Judge Jackson, that is the underlying element of the contempt shown to her: “how DARE she presume to be an equal to – or heaven forbid, better than – me.”

But then, immediately after Cotton’s diatribe and eleven hours into questioning, came the only African American on the Judiciary Committee – Senator Cory Booker. That’s when this happened:

https://twitter.com/PettyLupone/status/1506413421482295298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1506413421482295298%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fimmasmartypants.blogspot.com%2F2022%2F03%2Fbe-ally-like-cory-booker.html

I encourage you to take the time to watch this clip of how Booker used his time.

Booker began by debunking some of the most egregious attacks on Judge Jackson and then pointed out that she has been endorsed for a seat on the Supreme Court by police officers, victim’s advocacy groups, and Republican judges. Then he reminder her: “That’s who’s in your corner.” He followed that up with this:

I’ve just watched you with dignity and grace field what I can only imagine is behind those questions. This is doubt that is being sown. I just want America to know that when it comes to my family’s safety, when it comes to Newark, New Jersey or my state, God, I trust you. I trust you.

At that moment, you can see Judge Jackson sigh in relief. I can’t tell if she teared up, but I sure did!

Like me, you’ve probably seen lots of clips and stories about the awful things Republican Senators said during these hearings. Booker’s questioning hasn’t gotten that kind of attention – perhaps because we want to feed our anger.

But the senator from New Jersey just gave us a master class on how to be an ally. He didn’t settle for simply debunking the attacks on Judge Jackson. He built her up in the midst of others trying to tear her down. He gave her room to breath again, shoring up her ability to continue to take on those attacks with dignity and grace. Booker focused – at least for a moment – on what Judge Jackson needed rather than use his time to preen for the camera in order to score political points. That’s precisely what it means to have empathy.

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 255

Hi everyone! We’ve survived another half-week. I know we are still trying to process all the state-of-the-art weirdness this week so far, but if you want a capsule summary of last week’s state-of-the-art weirdness, Trevor Noah will hook you up with the info you need:

I haven’t had Jimmy Kimmel featured here for a while, but he’s one who is putting out new episodes this week, and his humor is usually topical:

Alright. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Cheers!