The day of Amy Connie Barrett’s first hearing was hypocrisy from start to finish | Amy Connie Barrett

TIt’s the first day of the Senate session to confirm Amy Connie Barrett To the Supreme Court it was a stigma and a sexist scene.

The first was the fact that the sessions took place at all. The pandemic continues to devastate the United States, killing more than 210,000 people and devastating the American economy. Millions of Americans are unemployed, struggling to pay rent or mortgages, worried about how they’d get grocery shopping. Senate Republicans can’t collect it to pass the pandemic relief bill that Americans desperately need, but they can ask the judiciary committee to meet in person to confuse a hard-right judge just days before the conclusion of the presidential election – presumably the president who has already refused to commit to a peaceful transition should object. For power.

The fact that the hearings are ever held is also outrageous given Mitch McConnell banned similar hearings to replace Judge Antonin Scalia after his death, in February of an election year. At the time, McConnell and the Republican Party insisted that an assertion of justice would be inappropriate and undermine the court’s legitimacy. Even several months before the election, they said, the American people must decide who appoints a new judge. McConnell banned the Senate from hearing even from Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee. in time, Amy Connie Barrett appeared on TV He said replacing Scalia in an election year would not be appropriate – and that it would be particularly inappropriate to replace the “strongest conservative in court” with a liberal because it was “not a side move”.

Now is an election year – and it’s much closer to the election than it was when Scalia passed away in 2016. The justice that is being replaced is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the most powerful liberals on court. The female candidate to replace her is a conservative far-right – not a side step. However, all of these hypocrites, from McConnell to Republicans in the Senate to Barrett herself, are happy to go forward because, this time, they have the power.

The hearing was also held indoors, with high rates of infection with a virus that travels through the air across the country. One Republican Senator, Mike Lee, attended the hearings and removed his mask, although he recently tested positive for Covid-19. It appears that he contracted the virus at a party celebrating the nomination of Amy Connie Barrett, which led to a massive event with the White House as ground zero. Lee, who has described himself as a pro-life legislator, insisted on attending the hearings in person anyway, putting everyone in the room, and the support staff tasked with cleaning up afterwards, on the way to harm – all to confirm what he described as a “favored life candidate” chosen for the court The Supreme Council would admit any honest person because the president believed it would turn Roe against Wade, stand by him in a disputed election, and strip millions of Americans of their health care by repealing the Affordable Care Act.

All of this would be bad enough, but the hearing itself was practically a caricature of how conservative men deal with women. There is no doubt that Barrett is highly respected among her colleagues at Notre Dame and that the conservative attorneys and judges she commissioned and worked with say she is a sharp legal mindset. Yet every Republican who was given a chance to speak out mentioned Barrett’s standing as a mother, and usually emphasized that she had seven children, many of whom were still of school age. Her ability to motherhood has been cited, just as much as her professional accomplishments, as evidence of her leadership capabilities and her status as a role model for young girls.

There’s nothing wrong with admitting Barrett is a mom, or welcoming her kids into the room (although I wonder the wisdom of having six kids in a room with a Covid patient and many others recently exposed). It is not unusual for the Judicial Committee to mention a candidate’s parental status. What is being Despite this, it is unusual for every member of one party to put it out, often more than once, and even confirm that it is eligible for seats. Several Republican senators noted, for example, that Barrett would be the first female justice with school-age children – which is a little fun, and hard to imagine about a guy. Do we know who was the first male Supreme Court judge with school-age children? Will that even be recorded?

The message from Republicans seems to be that Barrett is especially admired as a woman due to her large family. It’s an old, sexist metaphor, that a woman’s worth depends on her fertility – and that having children, or having too many children, indicates that a woman is more genuinely and willing to embrace her natural role as a mother. It’s also a racist view: white women with large families are often praised by conservatives, while black and brown women with large families are condemned.

Republicans have repeatedly said that Barrett’s personal life, including her faith, should be outlawed. Yet again and again they elevated her personal life, including her faith, as an asset. They seem to want to use what they claim to be Barrett’s private life as a sword and shield: an argument in her favor, but that cannot be refuted on her own terms or even questioned, because to do so would be to criticize her own beliefs and impose a “religious test”.

It was hypocritical from start to finish. It was also a profound display of disrespect for American women, who wish our qualifications to be assessed professionally – not our family size.