Create a few pools of defensibly but simultaneously meaningless and meaningful terms, run a couple simple loops to check your baselines, then pick from the two results based on the party of the POTUS doing the nominating. In a better world, the bot would be broken by Scalia/Ginsburg replacement… but, we don’t live in that better world.

So, here in reality — we get to play the dumb game where even the rarely valid, but actually appropriate Whattabout is powerless. Nowadays, everything is a proxy…

Joe Biden, who is either the addled puppet of a socialist cabal or the deviously nefarious head of the Deep State — depending on the moment and issue, promised in 2016 to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court.

Awfully hard to thread the needle between Biden’s promise and say, the originator of the quota promise, Saint Reagan, who pledged (and fulfilled) his 1980 campaign promise to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court. Yet, the dudgeon bots are surprisingly game to try.

Also hard to see a reality where Clarence Thomas gets nominated to fill a seat on a Supreme Court where William Renquist gets hit by a bus rather Thurgood Marshall retiring over health issues.

Of more recent vintage, let’s not pretend Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were coin flips to replace Anthony Kennedy and Barrett got the short end of the straw to wait and replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But, we’re a more evolved and advanced society than we were 40, 30 or 2 years ago and suddenly, a more recent 1/9 exception to the prior rule whereby a SCOTUS justice was Some White Guy tears at the very fabric our society. Right?

This Some (rapidly getting Old) White Guy does think there are legitimate debates to be had about the limits and long-term wisdom of concepts around affirmative action. At what point do we achieve a gender, racial — or both- equilibrium? At what point does merit rule all? However, This (Old) White Guy also recognizes he brings a suitcase full of priors into any such debates and thinks that it’s a situation that warrants listening twice as much as talking.

Still, a seat on the Supreme Court is a stupid place for such discussions. This isn’t the Harvard class of 2026 nor the upper management of BigCompany XYZ… and even those roles remain a subjective exercise in merit comparisons.

The reality of a Supreme Court seat is this —

“Most qualified” is a rather stupid and unobtainable label. How would you even gauge this?

Who makes this judgment? The ABA? A survey of sitting judges? Law School Deans? It’s a laughably impossible endeavor. Even assuming some learned pool of jurists, scholars, and legal expernistas could be agreed upon to begin with, it’s not as if you’d end up with a clear nominee. You’d almost certainly get a handful of “top” candidates garnering 2–3%, most, if not all, of whom would be considered “too old” to be seriously considered anyway.

“Most qualified” is a silly unicorn.

Lacking any insight into Biden ultimately chooses, we’re left with the usual resume criteria. Perhaps he’ll shock the world and pick Oprah — but let’s assume the shortlists are accurate…

The most often mentioned favorite is Ketanji Brown Jackson. Harvard Law Review Supervising Editor, JD cum laude, 8 years total on the federal bench in the DC Circuit… John Roberts was *summa* cum laude and *managing* editor of the Harvard Law Review, but then — only served 2 years on the federal bench. Then, there’s Sam Alito — who tallied 16 years on the federal bench, but achieved no honors at Yale Law and was merely *an* editor on Yale Law Review.

Another often-mentioned candidate is California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. She’s only magna cum laude + Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard and *editor-in-chief* of Yale Law Review, plus a stint as the principal deputy Solicitor General and a couple dozen arguments before the Supreme Court… this compared to Brett Kavanaugh, who was merely cum laude as an undergrad but achieved no honors in earning his JD and was *notes* editor on Yale Law Review… Oh yeah, that would be Yale where he also happened to be a legacy.

None of this really matters, of course, because the excuses and opposition will be comprised of whack-a-mole, shifting emphasis on what matters.

Pop quiz, hotshot — which Supreme Court Justice had the *most* federal bench experience prior to his/her elevation to the Supreme Court since 1900?

The answer is Sonia Sotomayor , but you’d never know it from the opposition to her nomination.

So, the opposition to whomever Biden nominates won’t really matter. It won’t be real. It won’t be honest. And it would actually be the same objection- just in different words — whether he had made the Reagan-esque explicit nomination promise or not.

If she’s got the same elite ivy pedigree that gets lauded for the Roberts or Alitos, she only got in for the wrong reasons. If she achieved honors or prestigious spots, she didn’t earn it. If she’s got more bench experience than the Barretts or Thomases, it will be because of her unexceptional nature.

When you peel all the layers of the onions back, you inevitably arrive at the clear double-standard. The accolades and resume line items only apply if you’re like me — Some Old White Guy. Otherwise, they’re evidence of such merits being bestowed on undeserving Others.

As mentioned above, this Old White Guy does think a world can exist — beyond SCOTUS nominees — where color/gender-blind merit is the be-all and end-all of admittance. It may well be within our grasp and lifetime.

To the extent, though, that a SCOTUS nomination should serve as a proxy for such aggregate debates- the problem isn’t that Joe Biden promised a black woman any more than it was Reagan promising a woman. It’s that obviously indistinguishable resumes — at least to the layman — will mean different things depending on whether the resume owner is Some White Guy or a black woman… or a Wise Latina… etc.

If you want a gender/race blind world? Assuming Biden nominates one of the favorites — even if it’s not Brown Jackson or Kruger- it would be best to accept the objective reality… forget Biden’s vow, forget the cultural proxy wars— unless he actually does nominate Cardi B, his nominee will almost certainly be every bit as qualified as Roberts or Alito or Kavanaugh if not moreso.

If you can’t accept that various cum laudes, Law Review posts, bench experience, and other brick-a-brak mean the exact same thing regardless of the person who achieved them — then I question whether whether you actually want this blind, merit-based world you say that you dream of.

Adam Serwer 🍝 on Twitter: "It's about time states had government tip lines where you can report subversives who traffic in prohibited ideas and concepts. https://t.co/ReDaXlzedp / Twitter"

It's about time states had government tip lines where you can report subversives who traffic in prohibited ideas and concepts. https://t.co/ReDaXlzedp

I might finally get some justice for a wrong committed more than 20 years ago… Anyone who has experienced any similar harm and/or deprivation of a Safe Space should probably contact helpeducation@governor.virginia.gov to see if they can help right such past wrongs…

…….

Hello,

I was heartened to read that you have undertaken the very necessary idea of dealing with “educators” who teach using subversive or otherwise un-American materials. I would like to thank you for providing this valuable service to real Americans.

This may potentially be beyond your purview, but at this point — you might be my only hope for remediation I require to achieve a Safe Space. At minimum, perhaps the Commonwealth can provide the validation I require as Straight White Male (hereafter, “Real American”) to ensure that I’m not forced to consider elements of society and history that make me uncomfortable.

You see, more than 20 years ago — I was forced by a social justice warrior to not only *read* — but also write a paper — on Toni Morrison’s allegedly acclaimed novel, “Beloved”. I understand from your governor’s campaign that this is a clear and obvious example of Woke CRT, which we all know is a clear and present danger to children reading stupid tedious Hawthorne over and over again as we all know they should. If an education in literature requires more effort than seeking out 2nd hand Cliff Notes on tired Faulkner or purchasing one of the one variety of Shakespeare papers on the market, then I think you would agree that we are lost as a civilization.

As a wise man once said, if it hasn’t been the basis of a Reality TV series on TLC, is it really “literature”?

Being a Real American, and one in his late 40s, I have suffered a lifetime of such ignominies. Rather than focusing on Hamlet or Julius Caesar, I had to read Othello — which, as you may be aware, involves a black man protagonist. Rather than Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, I was forced to read nonsense like Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage — which, as you may know, is totally lacking in the description of happy slaves. If this slide into subversive literature and history isn’t stopped now — I fear that future generations might have to read Natashia Deón’s Grace rather than Zane Grey. Can you imagine a worse fate?

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. I certainly understand that your scope is limited and that you only wish to put a stop to this nefarious and insidious tendency whereby the natural course of history and culture is not predicated upon, examined through, and otherwise told through the eyes of Real Americans like myself.

So, back to my reason for writing to you. At some point in the 90s during my college education — I took a course on modern literature. Some of the works on the course list were OK — despite it’s subconsciously (or at least, neutral) anti-Nazi stance, I suppose I can see value in teaching Don Delillo’s White Noise. But… Morrison’s Beloved.

Beyond being forced to read it, my paper received a C+. This is in spite of the fact that my revisions took heed of then-predominant PC culture (which is what we used to call “woke”) and totally excised the 1.5 pages where I expounded the black female tendency to believe in ghosts. Despite my 2 AM efforts to use words like “symbolism” and whatnot, the obviously Woke professor gave me C+ and worse, had the temerity to describe my effort as derivative and superficial.

“Derivative and superficial”…. me… a Real American?!?! Can you imagine? That’s beyond the fact that the material itself I was forced to read was so wholly un-American (and un-Real American). And the fact that this judgment deprived me of a Safe Space.

Consequently, as a part of your efforts to correct ongoing wrongs, I hope you will consider revising this travesty. As I mentioned, I realize the original grade was delivered in a school that falls outside your jurisdiction. However, I think it would be a strong message if you were to bestow upon me an ‘A’ for this paper. Or, alternately, I would be willing to submit a substitute paper covering any George RR Martin novel or Leave it to Beaver episode of your choosing.

I leave it to your learned judgment as to what institution should confer this appropriate ‘A’. As a Real American, I am used to receiving the scraps of recognition that remain available to the Straight White Male. A state proclamation would be sufficient, or barring that, one from UVA.

Thank you for your consideration

The moon probably isn’t made of cheese, but then — is there a better explanation for the cancellation of Star Trek:TOS than the idea that the government knew it would need the sets to stage the moon landing? Let’s not be naive and believe the cover story that Shatner needed more than a decade to prepare to star in TJ Hooker. A rational person really has to admit there may well be some kernels of truth.

Still, one needs to be careful… meticulous… Otherwise, you might end up shooting up a Comet Pizza basement and look the fool, even if you might have been on the right path (Clearly, if there’s an international cabal of leftist pedophile traffickers — it would more likely be out of the basement of a California Pizza Kitchen basement… because whoever heard of a Californian knowing anything about pizza?)

But I digress.

My awakening begins, as so many do, by chance.

For some time, I’ve been a pole watcher. In my local grocery, there is a pole. On this pole are hooks, where various cellophane bags of dried peppers are stored. Like so many pandemic noob chefs — I’ve been looking to expand my repertoire beyond the already mastered Tombstone pizza. One item on my list is birria — a tasty Jalisco specialty that requires guajillo peppers to create properly. For some time, the hook for the guajillo peppers has been empty… arbol… ancho… pasilla… but, suspiciously, no guajillo.

As any pole watcher is entitled, I questioned the pole worker — or, clerk, if you prefer. She informed me that there must have been a “mistake” because they did actually order more guajillo, per the empty hook. After some contentious… discussion… she even showed a clipboard, clearly indicating more guajillo peppers were to be ordered. So why was the pole showing no guajillo peppers?!?!

The plot thickens, my mind races. Someone — she would not tell me who — puts the entries from the clipboard into a computer, which in turns transmits the orders.

Obviously, I demanded to see this machine. To audit it. To see the code.

Walking home upon posting bail, I was filled with questions.. questions that need answers… all under one broader, bigger omnibus problem.

Was someone trying to STOP THE MEAL?

To the internet!

As I searched for potential evil doers, I skimmed past countless villains. The Rothchilds and their space lasers, starting fires. Soros and his troupe of crisis actors. How did it all connect? Was Huge Chavez hoarding my guajillo peppers? Was a hedge fund attempting to corner the market? I couldn’t help but feel a veil was being lifted.

I took a breathe and decided to take a step back. The research was piling up more questions than it was providing answers. Years ago, we were promised that voting a certain way would lead to a taco truck on every corner.

So where are they?

I realized that I had been so sedated that I had already been forced into a life of attempting to make my own birria without even understanding the bait-and-switch. Given my prior attempts at BBQ, it was pretty clear that the antacid manufacturers might also be involved. Or at least — or also?- the smoke detector consortium.

Where The Taco Trucks Go, We Too Want To Go — #WTTGW2W2G

As I worked my way through podcasts and videos and online forums and patriots seeking only to enlighten me, rather than sell me books, movies, or clicks — I became more and more certain I was on the right track.

This was clearly the work of a cabal, a great divining of good vs. evil. My introduction may have been accidental, but through a dried pepper, I had found the doorway into a higher level of understanding.

It was then I stumbled upon ‘M’.

M is an ultra-top-double-secret classification. M provides clues — they are called “dollops”. Dollops are tidbits and oddly formed pieces of information meant to help pepper patriots prepare for The Rewarm.

The Rewarm is the coming day when we will no longer have to hunt for specific peppers or even specific foods, but when the global cabal of evil doers will be arrested and justice served — sauces $.50 extra — and their stasis chambers of already prepared dishes will be returned to the masses.

M has been providing dollops for a long time and these dollops are hard to decipher, I’ll grant. Bruce Willis is already dead. Water kills aliens. They were living in the present the whole time. Something about water nymphs I still haven’t been able to crack.

But if you take the final red pill — I’m still on salmon pink, patience — all becomes clear.

So, I have learned to Trust the Flan.

No, I’m not talking about the diverse wrecking coup of minotaurs, CEOs, real estate agents, cavemen, retired Lt Colonels, and ninja bartenders smashing down barricaded doors in the Capitol, looking for hands to bind with their zip ties, while makeshift gallows awaited outside, because Congress was performing the 2nd to last ceremonial role in our Presidential transition.

The real danger, of course, is that a bunch of private companies decided that plain-sight plotting of a bloody coup would be, long-term, bad for business. Perhaps the data-mining market for rope (rope/tree/journalist) or ammo cartridges (4 boxes of liberty!) isn’t as dependent on flourishing meme shares or isn’t as big as once believed.

Regardless, this is the Greatest Danger Ever now.

It can be distinguished from previous Greatest Dangers Ever — same-sex couples getting wedding cakes, milquetoast health insurance minimum coverage requirements, and the possibility that some ethnic jokes are no longer particularly amusing by its surreal stupidity and sheer dumbassery.

Or maybe it can’t, I don’t know. One for the philosophers. Or the masochists. Or maybe the philosopher-masochists.

Some may be surprised to learn this — I am not a historian, but it’s on the internet so it must be true — that the “Holocaust” and the decade leading up to it was not a forgotten Bronson film, resurrected to become a meme backdrop.

Hard as it may be to believe, expressing your bloodlust in a manner that causes a social media platform to give you a Terms of Service tsk-tsk doesn’t make you a Jew in mid-20th century Germany. Actually, it doesn’t really make you a Jew pre-modern Europe period.

It just makes you the sort of person that people are tired of doing business with — even the sort of “business” that means nothing more than signing up for a free service in exchange for pelting you with ads.

I know, I know — shocking… and one needs to use a complicated online cipher like typing “holocaust” into your browser search bar to find it, then pore over “drops”, also known as “results” to take the red pill.

But it’s true.

There may be some confusion, so perhaps some visuals will help.

THIS is a ghetto:

THIS is not:

THIS is what “cancel culture” means:

This is not:

THIS is what being singled out by the “ruling elites” and marked as subhuman, ticketed for exclusion and eventually death is:

THIS is not:

THIS is a step in the slope that leads to genocide:

THIS is not:

I imagine some folks might want to argue slippery slopes and defend the inherent imperfect of any historical analogy… All I can say is “Do you need to see the pictures again?”

Or, perhaps better — let me refer you to the noted expert on the applicability of analogies, Jules Winnfield/Samuel L Jackson.

It ain’t the same league, it ain’t even the same fuckin’ sport

So Why Biden?

We could do without a Dear Leader for a spell…

Borrowing heavily from Janan Ganesh’s excellent piece in the Financial Times 6 weeks ago —

The problem, in other words, is not Mr Biden’s failure to kindle passion in people. It is our psychic need for such a person in the first place. His election might reacquaint the US with politics as it should be and has been: a machine for the arbitration of conflicting claims, and not as the basis of one’s whole identity.

Governance should be boring — and in fact, with a few notable exceptions, it long has been. Perhaps the worst part of Trumpism — though, it is hard to pick just one — is the manner by which it views governance as the last ditch litigation of culture claims and a revanchist howl against a changing world. All Presidents and Presidential candidates — good, bad, or mediocre — attempt to evoke at least some hint of an aura, a new start (or, for some, a grasp at an old start made new again). The concept is a natural part of campaigning, as old as the Republic itself.

Yet, with the norms and guardrails badly in need of repair, 2020 is badly in need of a President whose main case predicates on a return to normalcy… a Presidency where “gaffes” are inconsequential oops rather than statements of purpose… where incrementalism is the plan, not something to be disdained as weak sauce, which leads to the idea that

Presidents should function as fulcrums…

With apologies to a golden age Simpsons episode, we don’t really need any Movementarians governing us and the fact is, we rarely have. Historical context is difficult to unwind; it’s often said that history is written by the victors, but this is only partially true. Dusty and forgotten — and sadly simplified beyond reckoning to soundbites, neat and tidy quotes, and apocryphal quotes — even the tempestuous, roiling periods of our history have been marked by Presidents, even the great ones, that recognize leading a nation (or more accurately, its executive branch) is less an exercise in boundary-pushing than it is a recognition that a large nation, growing ever-larger, ever more complicated, always faced with choices that are only seem more stark needs balance above all.

Abraham Lincoln lost a Senate election casting doubt on the survival of a house divided against itself, but won the Presidency agreeing that John Brown should hang and even promising to protect that division — waiting 2 years into a Civil War, much to the dismay of his own supporters, before planting the stake of emancipation that wouldn’t actually come to pass until his murder and two constitutional amendments later.

Social Security, the most lasting and impactful of liberal lion FDR’s New Deal programs, was considered weak sauce, a slap in the face to then-burgeoning Townsend Plan movement. By 1936, southern populists like Huey Long and northern progressives like the LaFollettes were already plotting his demise — the “Union ticket”, a poorly disguised Long vehicle, took 2% of the vote in dry-run preparation for a 1940 challenge that never came.

And speaking of Social Security? The Great Communicator cut his teeth on the Goldwater movement, still chasing the dream of repeal of Social Security in the 50s and 60s, damning the then-not-even-passed Medicare as the last domino to fall before the horrors of full-on socialism… Of course, Reagan’s Presidency included landmark legislation in 1983 that far from dismantling the entitlement safety net, bought it decades of solvency.

A Biden Presidency recognizes the fulcrum. Respects it. Works from it.

47 years is a feature, not a bug…

Perhaps as a consequence of our On Demand world, there has developed this mistaken impression that government exists to “fix” some obvious, eternal problem, as if it there exists a static world, with obvious answers and all-so-simple solutions. Reductionist foolishness.

A changing world requires ever-changing governance. Specific to tax policy/tax reform, this is one of my favorite (now ancient) pieces on such matters, and it’s hardly a liberal clarion call —

I’m not quite as cynical as Friedman, but he has a point. Tax reform is not an event but a process. You don’t have to like that fact to accept its empirical validity. Tax reform is a lot like cleaning out your garage. Just because you cleaned it last week, do you really expect that it will never need cleaning again?

So it is with most government policy. We don’t need to worry much about the viability of the buggy whip construction industry, but we might wish to ensure that lead paint isn’t used in nurseries, at minimum.

One item on Biden’s resume often discussed — and rather shamelessly humped by a man who bellows Lock Em’ Up whenever it suits him — is the now-infamous 1994 Crime Bill… Yet, often overlook is that the legislation passed the Senate 96–4. Then-Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders voted for it. So did then-Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown… and 60s era Black Panther and Chicago congressman Bobby Rush. Nobody would mistake any of them for conservatives.

The fact is that the violent crime rate in early 1990s America was 3 times higher than it is today (Chicago’s homicide rate in 1992 was ~48 per 100k; today, it is about ~17 per 100k).

Good governance reacts to the world as it is; good governance recognizes its errors and corrects them; good governance avoids the binary choice; good governance seeks to find the elusive intersection of what is needed and what is possible… and understands that intersection changes, constantly.

Change or Atrophy…

Joe Biden is 77. Just as 47 years is more than long enough to make tactical mistakes on legislation, it covers an awful lot of history — if one wishes to hold elected representatives to account for laws authored years ago, it stands to reason we ought to hold ourselves to account for the societal mistakes of our own past.

Perhaps the most cringe-inducing element of Biden’s primary campaign was his hackneyed yearning for the comity and compromise of early 1970s America, namely, his ability to “work with” execrable racist James Eastland others. You could stack upon that his rather churlish reaction to former Nevada state rep Lucy Flores not appreciating a shoulder rub.

But then, women in power were sometimes unappreciative of unwanted shoulder rubs in recent memory, too. And James Eastland was being re-elected for a 5th time, by 18 points, the same time Joe was winning his first election. If you’ve learned your history by memes, you doubtless know that Robert Byrd was a former Klansman… and Strom Thurmond was still getting birthday kisses while he was an addled relic in the Senate at 100.

Joe Biden won’t be the leading edge of broader social change, but — see the fulcrum above, unfortunately — he probably shouldn’t be. Accepting the errors of the past, understanding that an awful lot of people in the country don’t see “getting along with segregationists” as a feature, and at least nodding towards the future is enough. Elections themselves are a poor substitute for such markers .

If Anita Hill can accept that, if Biden can ask the competitor who threw the sharpest punch on his 70s-era Senate comity nostalgia to run with him, he’ll do.

Because temperament matters…

As Oliver Wendell Holmes said of FDR, “a second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament” — and perhaps more than anything, this is what the nation needs.

A President that seeks compromise with even those who might make those of us on the margins of any given issue blanche. A President that doesn’t see enemies in every shadow. A President practiced in delivering, frankly, half loaves because there’s no such thing as a free full loaf.

A President who doesn’t predicate governance on who was most obsequious in seeking assistance or dictate punishment onto those most loudly opposed.

Above all, an experienced creature of government that takes the right lessons from our shared history and acknowledges its mistakes, promotes its better angels, and sees the nuance necessary in divining the difference.

By design and hopefully — not a lot will change tomorrow. Nor will it next January. Existing problems will still persist, new problems will arise, and I fully expect a Biden/Harris administration to make mistakes aplenty.

A vote for Biden/Harris isn’t a solution to any of that. In a nation of 240 messy, sometimes ugly years, with 330 million people of all sorts, existing in a world forever churning — it’s a vote to accept that as our baseline and get to work.

And that’s more than enough in 2020.