Donald Trump applauds Amy Coney Barrett on the White House balcony.
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With Amy Coney Barrett’s Rushed Confirmation Sham, Republicans Show Us How Quickly They Can Act When They Feel Like It

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Vivian Kane
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Published: Oct 27, 2020 01:52 pm

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Just eight days before Election Day, Senate Republicans voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. This comes just barely 5 weeks after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and one month after Donald Trump announced Barrett’s nomination in a COVID-19 superspreader White House event.

So, in addition to being an undemocratic sham of a power grab, it’s also a slap in the face to everyone in this country who has watched the GOP’s petty stonewalling for months as people continue to get sick and die while we wait for them to pass any sort of economic relief package.

Everything about Barrett’s confirmation is disgraceful. Obviously, there’s the hypocrisy of pushing through a nominee this close to Election Day, when approximately 66 million Americans have already cast their vote early, when just four and a half years ago, these same Republicans refused to even hold a hearing or vote on then-President Obama’s nominee in an election year. Every Republican but one (thanks, Susan Collins) voted to confirm Barrett.

Then there’s Barrett herself, whom Republicans claimed was being attacked for her religion, when in fact what people had an issue with was that she herself has said she lets her religion guide her view of the law, completely disregarding that whole separation of church and state thing.

There’s also Barrett’s qualifications, which are basically nil. Barrett’s career has mostly been in teaching and she has only been a judge for all of three years. I’ve been writing for this website longer than Barrett has been a judge.

In addition to being the least qualified Supreme Court Justice in decades, she’s also one of the youngest justices to be appointed ever, meaning she and her religion-driven, “originalist” opinions will be influencing the court–which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, with three of those conservatives having been appointed by Trump alone–for decades to come.

On top of all of this, following Barrett’s confirmation, the Twitter account for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans posted a glee-ridden celebratory tweet, tagging in Hillary Clinton for maximum pettiness.

I’m having trouble imagining what kind of a person would think that was a perfectly fine and professional thing to do.

Hillary Clinton–a private citizen not currently running for office–didn’t respond to the tweet but she did make her feelings known.

(image: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

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Image of Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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