Are Ketanji Brown Jackson Hearings Just Theater for Republican Base?
Republicans continue to rely on sexist narratives around feminine strength when attacking Jackson’s sentencing record, using her to support QAnon conspiracy theories and appeal to their base.
Landwebs
In many ways, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is just a prop in a show, a figurehead being used to rehabilitate the image of conservative Republican judges like Brett Kavanaugh by inferring that Democrats lack civility, says Charles M. Blow in an op-ed for the New York Times. Blow argued the Senate hearings this week on her Supreme Court nomination positioned women as mere pawns in male power struggles, and framed her in particular as a proxy for Democrats whom they want to brand as “soft on crime.”
Blow points out that Republicans continue to rely on sexist narratives around feminine strength when attacking Jackson’s sentencing record, implying that women may be more likely to respond emotionally and compassionately when a dispassionate reading of the facts would dictate harsher treatment. By distorting Judge Jackson’s record of sentencing people convicted of possessing child pornography, Blow believes Republicans are also using her to provide ammunition for the QAnon conspiracy hat a network of Satan-worshiping pedophiles control the government and media. As senators distort facts around Jackson’s history, Blow says that the nomination is being used in a “political battle that has almost nothing to do with her or with the court.”
