9/21/20
Yours truly feels compelled to preface this post by
stating that I detest identity politics and the notion of selecting
candidates for public office or other high positions of public trust based on
their race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and the like. We are all Americans that should be judged,
or, more properly, evaluated, on the basis of our merits and, in the words of a
guy whose opinions on such things once mattered, the content of our
character. Further, my opinion on how President
Trump and the GOP ought to proceed on a replacement for Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was made clear in my last post, (HOLD
OFF ON THE SUPREME COURT NOMINATION…AND OTHER QUICK THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH OF
JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, 9/19/20).
Not only would delaying the nomination be the right, or at least the
non-hypocritical, thing to do, which I admit is a quaint notion in these days
of politics supra omnia, but it might also help the GOP politically for
a number of reasons, especially should the public suddenly decide it would
prefer character in its leaders, an eventuality that is admittedly a long-shot.
However, the President and his Party have already decided
that a nomination for the Court won’t wait.
Further, the notion that race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and
the like are the most, if not the only, traits worthy of consideration long ago
took permanent hold of American politics.
Given that these two conditions prevail, yours truly has decided that,
for this post, I will offer the President and his Party a strategy based on raw
politics.
The President ought to announce that his selection to
replace Justice Ginsburg on the Supreme Court is Judge Barbara Lagoa
of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Atlanta. Why?
Judge Lagoa is a woman, a stipulation that Mr. Trump, who still insists
he is a conservative, has made a sine qua non for his nominee. Judge Lagoa is Hispanic. Yours truly has always thought the
characterization of somebody as “Hispanic” or “Latino” is overly broad and thus
dismissive of the cultural diversity among those of our people who themselves,
or whose ancestors, hale from Spanish or Portuguese speaking nations to our
south, but the moniker seems to work for those for whom categories are all that
matter. But I digress. To be clear, Ms. Lagoa is of Cuban
ancestry. Judge Lagoa is also from Florida, a
key state in the 2020 election, as it is in every presidential election. Is she the most qualified person to sit on
the Court? Is she even among the most
qualified? Who knows? Who cares? Her nomination works politically, and, today, what else matters?
After announcing that Judge Lagoa is his pick to
replace Justice Ginsburg, President Trump should announce that he will delay a Senate
confirmation vote until after the election. Then he can argue that he is working
vigilantly to nominate the first Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court, but that,
in order for him to accomplish this goal, not only must he be re-elected but the
GOP must also hold the Senate. He will
remind the electorate of the Democrats’ unceasing, and ultimately successful,
effort to block Miguel Estrada from an Appellate Court seat in 2003 for
fear that such a result would put a Hispanic in a good position to wind up on
the Supreme Court. He could use
Democratic Judiciary Committee staff memos, most notably the memo to Senator
Dick Durbin stating that Democratic interest groups insisted that Mr.
Estrada not be nominated because “he is Latino,” as evidence of such Democratic
perfidy. President Trump would thus
use the pending nomination of Judge Lagoa to attract the votes not only of
Hispanics, a “demographic” that, reportedly, is not all that excited about Joe
Biden, but also some support among those who think it is a good idea to
select people for offices as important as Associate Justice of the United
States Supreme Court on the basis of their race, ethnic heritage, gender,
sexual orientation, etc., a group that apparently includes President Trump.
Such a move would help the President not only in Florida,
whence Judge Lagoa hales, but also in states like Arizona, Iowa, and the more
salient swing states around the Great Lakes that have substantial Hispanic
populations, unless, of course, the Democrats can convince Hispanic voters that
being Cuban is not “Hispanic” enough to be considered authentic, much
like Joe Biden tries to convince Blacks that those among them who do not
vote for him are not authentically Black.
Would this move be transparent? Yes.
Would a lot of people, Hispanic and otherwise, see right through
it? Yes. Would it nonetheless garner a few votes for
the President? Yes. Is there any downside, politically
speaking? No. Contrary to the fantasies of Mr. Trump’s most
ardent critics, there is nobody among Mr. Trump’s base who will not vote for
him because he nominated a Cuban-American for the Supreme Court. So will a Lagoa nomination, followed by a
delay of a vote until after the election, contribute, at the margin, to the
President’s re-election efforts? Yes.
Will Judge Lagoa, should this whole effort succeed, turn
out to be an outstanding, or even passable, Supreme Court Justice? Who knows?
She could be the next John Marshall or the next David Souter. But who cares? This is all about politics. Such trendy piffles as qualifications for a
multi-decade stint on the Supreme Court pale in relative importance.
Since we’re talking raw politics here, you should read
both my books, The Chairman, A Novel of
Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge,
A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics for some REALLY raw
politics.
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