New York Times Not Sure Black Voters Will Care Republicans Were Racist To Ketanji Brown Jackson

Another in the Times’s award-winning ‘huh?’ series.

Republicans showed their asses during soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearings. They berated her relentlessly and often nonsensically. They flung QAnon conspiracy fecesat her and suggested she was somehow pro-pedophile. When that failed and Jackson was confirmed with bipartisan support, these scumbags walked out of the chamber , refusing to acknowledge the historic moment. (Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul even removed their ties so they could vote “no” from the Senate cloak room like cowards.)

The GOP is little more than a flaming cross masquerading as a political party. There’s no longer even the weakest effort to hide its contempt for Black people. But, hey, what if they still had a shot at winning over Black voters in November’s midterms? What if Black people are just that stupid?

Yes, we’re talking about another winning expose from the New York Times . This one’s called "Jackson Confirmation Aside, GOP Sees an Opening With Black Voters.” People who buy bridges in Brooklyn are less gullible than publications that willingly run the latest “Republicans think they can do better with Black voters” feature. Sure, Republicans say this all the time, but a competent media should focus instead on what they do. For the past year, Republicans have actively passed voter suppression bills blatantly designed to disenfranchise Black voters. They’ve also shamelessly gerrymandered House maps to minimize the impact of Black voters.

PREVIOUSLY: Should Republicans Beat On Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson To Avenge Ruined Life Of Brett Kavanaugh? 

 The Times piece opens with this insulting subhed:

With inflation, war and the pandemic looming larger, Democrats who hope that the browbeating of Ketanji Brown Jackson will rally Black voters behind their candidates may be disappointed.

There was nothing hopeful about the shameful way Republicans treated the first Black woman to receive a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. We actually don’t enjoy having to remind people how racist Republicans are every day. They are terrible in so many other ways. We’d prefer the variety if they gave us a chance, but even though Jackson’s confirmation doesn’t change the balance of a Trumped-up Court, Republicans were intent on “stealing our joy.”

Reporters Jonathan Weisman and Maya King warn us that Democrats are up a creek because of inflation, the Ukraine war, and the pandemic. They don’t immediately mention, as they should, that Republicans have no viable solutions to address these issues and that prominent members of the GOP are both pro-Putin and pro-pandemic.

How do Weisman and King support their thesis that "Judge Jackson’s rough treatment” is unlikely turn out Black voters for Democrats in large numbers? They offer us some compelling quotes from ... Black Republicans. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, one of two Black House Republicans, said he’d seen nothing during Jackson’s hearings that he felt Republicans should regret. The brother left his soul at the coat check.

“Never once did they go into her personal life,” he said. “Never once did they go into her personal background. Never once were their accusations about her character.”

Republicans couldn’t “go into her personal life” because she wasn’t credibly accused of sexual assault. However, they did attempt to smear her as a friend of pedophiles and Nazis. It was baseless character assassination.

“We are not a monolith,” said Jennifer-Ruth Green, a Black Air Force veteran who is running for Congress in Northwestern Indiana as a Republican. “We see inflation and gas prices. Voters are not stupid.”

"We are not a monolith" is what sorry-ass Black conservatives tell themselves when all their relatives look askance at them during family get-togethers. Eight-seven percent of Black people voted for Joe Biden. Ninety-two percent of Black women and 88 percent of Black men voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms. Black people don’t vote for Republicans, because Republicans are garbage.

 The Times doesn’t devote many column inches to the small minority of white evangelicals who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and feel just terrible about all those anti-LGBTQ laws. They are not representative of some massive shift among the larger demographic. Yet the Times can’t resist pursuing the elusive Black Trump supporter.

For instance, they interviewed Roshaun Knowles from Gary, Indiana. The state is solidly Republican, and Gary is solidly Democratic. While Knowles believes Senate Republicans disrespected Jackson, she’s still considering voting Republican in November. However, she voted for Donald Trump in 2020 so she’s hardly a bellwether voter. (She’s also anti-vax, so there’s that.) Democrats should worry about Black Biden voters flipping. There’s little indication of this. Even a reversion to pre-Obama turnout levels would still have Republicans only winning 12 to 14 percent of Black voters.

Wesley Hunt, a Black Republican running for a solid-red Texas House seat, said, “I think the Black people that [the Jackson hearings] would turn off weren’t voting for Republicans anyway, no matter what.” That’s incredibly cynical but almost honest. Republicans felt free to abuse Jackson for the pleasure of racists, who do vote for them, and they are confident that the remaining Black Republicans lack the dignity to finally say “enough."

[ New York Times ]

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