Think Far-Left Rhetoric Isn’t Toxic to Democrats? Just Watch the Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings – Opinion

Ketanji Jackson is not expected to serve as a conservative justice on the Supreme Court. She will undoubtedly be confirmed and it is likely that many Republicans will cross the aisle in order to confirm.

The Republicans have shown that Democrats are willing to abandon far-left rhetoric if given an opportunity. Particularly when it concerns the Constitution and other social issues.

Jackson is having to flee from Critical Race Theory and won’t define what actually constitutes being a “woman”. What’s more, she isn’t going into great detail about when life begins and when in life equal protection applies to a person.

KENNEDY: What is the point of equal protection under the law for a person?

JACKSON: Well Senator, I believe that the Supreme Court — actually, I actually don’t know the answer to that question, I’m sorry. pic.twitter.com/sVbJFtH6N8

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) March 23, 2022

This comes amid a 13-hour marathon of questioning featuring Democrats praising Jackson’s virtues and qualifications, Republicans getting revenge for the hearings of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, and both sides trying to pin her down on key Supreme Court issues. Dan McLaughlin National ReviewIt was clear, then, how disastrous the hearing was in terms of progressive jurisprudence.

• She affirmed that “the Supreme Court has established that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right” (although that doesn’t commit her to adhere to that view herself).
• Asked by Chuck Grassley about Justice Stephen Breyer’s tendency to cite international law as a source for interpreting the Constitution, Jackson said that she respectfully disagreed with her former boss, and that international law should not be used to determine the meaning of the Constitution.
• When she was asked to name one justice that resembled her philosophy, she replied: Could have named Breyer, but she didn’t, and declined to name one, instead pointing to her own record.
• She continued to be emotional about the police officers in her family as well as the importance of the police.
• She talked about how her experience growing up was “completely different” from her parents’ attendance of segregated schools, and she cited “how far we have come” as a sign of “the greatness of America.”
• Lindsey Graham agreed that extremist Islamist groups were still fighting for our freedom, and that the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 is still in force.
• Asked by Dianne Feinstein about “super-precedent” status for Roe v. WadeHowever, she only discussed the usual standards. stare decisis and declined to apply any sort of elevated status for Roe. Asked by John Cornyn, she said that she had never heard of a judge describing a case as a “super-precedent.”

Jackson’s hearings are underway at a time when Democrats and Democratic policies are deep underwater among polled voters. Biden’s approval rating still hovers just above 40 percent (his disapproval is pretty consistently over 50 percent). A lot of Democrats have fled the House for November. Candidates for state office, like Beto O’Rourke, are begging the Biden team to not come over to campaign for them.

The Democrats’ brand is toxic right now.

Teams of people are assigned to the task of preparing for confirmation hearings. These people work hard to anticipate what Senators may ask, especially those on the opposite side of the aisle. They also prepare them for the most difficult questions with well-crafted responses and statements. So it’s natural that Jackson would push back on things like Josh Hawley’s assertions about her being too lenient on child pornographers.

However, her team did not prepare her for issues of social importance like transgenderism and abortion. OderShe was taught how to navigate these situations by her parents. It seems far more likely that it’s the latter.

And that’s because of what I mentioned at the beginning here: Jackson’s confirmation is basically pre-ordained. It is impossible for the Republicans to block it. It would make it a campaign issue and they could all stand against her. That’s why I expect there will be a handful of Republicans (particularly those up for re-election this year, if not more) who will vote to confirm her. The issue is now out of 2020.

But… if you go too far left in your responses to the judicial committee, right now you could find your job depends on the whims of Kyrsten Sinema or Joe Manchin. They might not be able to buck the party in normal circumstances but they feel quite empowered right now. If they wanted a more “moderate” judicial pick (or if they just wanted to buck the White House again) nothing would stop them, and it would be Democrats who stopped the confirmation of the first black woman to be a Supreme Court justice, not the Republicans.

Biden’s team doesn’t want another failure so they prepared Jackson. Jackson was to be prepared to resist progressive talk points and play the game as straight as she can. We know she’ll be a progressive judge. This is a fact that everyone knows. To survive, she must make herself less progressive. This means being too progressive for the Democrats is dangerous. It’s all they know.