The confirmation Thursday by the United States Senate of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court has just marked history by opening the door of the highest judicial institution in the United States to a first African-American woman.
This symbolic vote in favor of the magistrate chosen by Joe Biden, however, comes to an end to several weeks of hearings for the candidate marred by the violence of the attacks of the Republicans against her, but also by the normalization in the speech of the conservatives, during this exercise, conspiracy theories and the absurd demonization of the Democrats that resonates within their electorates.
“What the hearings for the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson have shown is that there are no longer any limits to the lies carried by conspiracy theories, says the specialist in the contamination of public debate by conspiracy Russell Muirhead, professor at Dartmounth College, joined by The duty in New Hampshire. And despite the collapse of the public debate, we do not yet see how those who say anything to retain power will end up sinking.
In the afternoon, by 53 senators against 47, the upper house of the American Congress confirmed the choice of Ketanji Brown Jackson, a 51-year-old lawyer, who is preparing to replace the progressive judge Stephen Breyer, 83, who will take him, his retirement at the end of June.
However, this succession does not change the balance of power in the highest court in the country, still controlled by six magistrates against three by the conservatives. A reality out of step with the evolution of American society, which has become more and more liberal since the 1990s, recently indicated a study by American sociologist Michael Hout published in the pages of the Public Opinion Quarterly.
Faced with the low stakes linked to this nomination for the Republicans, the elected representatives of Donald Trump’s party therefore took advantage of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s appearance before elected officials in Washington to campaign for the legislative elections next November on their favorite theme: the demonization of Democrats, whom they wrongly label as radical left-wing extremists and accuse of laxity in tackling crime.
Unceremoniously, Judge Jackson was thus criticized on the judgments she rendered in cases related to child pornography which, according to them, were not severe enough. Unfounded accusations in the light of analyzes of court decisions in this type of case, which confirmed the decisions of Ms. Brown Jackson in tune with those of other judges, including more conservative magistrates.
Flurry of accusations
Despite this, Texas Senator Ted Cruz accused the candidate of having “a heart with murderers, with criminals” and of having brought this inclination with her when becoming a criminal court judge.
For his part, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas claimed that if she could, Ketanji Brown Jackson would go to Nuremberg to “defend the Nazis” rather than prosecute them as another “Jackson” had done, the judge Robert H. Jackson, leaving the Supreme Court in 1946 to become the chief United States attorney in this landmark trial.
On Tuesday, conspiratorial MP Marjorie Green Taylor, a Donald Trump loyalist, added a layer of it by accusing the three Republican senators who confirmed their vote in favor of Ms. Brown Jackson’s candidacy for the Supreme Court, namely Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, of “complicity with pedophiles”.
“Any senator who votes to uphold #KJB is a propedophile,” she wrote on Twitter. “You are either a senator who supports child rapists, child pornography and the vilest child predators” or not, she added.
Delegitimize by the odious
“We are faced with the exploitation of conspiracy theories that seek to discredit the Democrats by placing them on an equal footing with the Nazis and claiming that they secretly support child sex trafficking,” says Russell Muirhead.
“This is what we have seen with the “Pizzagate” or in the theories supported by the conspiracy group QAnon. And now, this practice is echoed in hearings for the confirmation of a judge, as a weapon to delegitimize political opponents by seeking to portray them as unrespectable participants in the political game. »
Thursday’s vote confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court was greeted with elation by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “It’s a wonderful day, a joyful day, an inspiring day, for the Senate, for the Supreme Court and for the United States of America,” he said.
From the White House, US President Joe Biden hailed a “historic day”, which ultimately fulfills one of his election promises made during the 2020 campaign. The Democrat then indicated his intention to appoint as soon as he could in the highest court in the land, the first African-American woman in the institution’s 233-year history.
Of the 115 judges who have served there to date, there are barely five women — four white and one Hispanic — and two black men, one of whom, Clarence Thomas, was a conservative appointed by George Bush Sr.
“Today, the far left got the Supreme Court justice they wanted,” lashed out for his part the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, just before the vote.
For sociologist Martin Orr of Boise State University, this process of hearing and confirming the judge did nothing more than confirm that “conspiracy is becoming more and more entrenched in contemporary discourse”, he says from Idaho, where The duty joined him, “with the potential risk of seeing attempts to solve common problems thwarted by the demonization of political opponents”.
The thing is also not without risk, according to him, since sometimes it can encourage “some people to try to block the democratic process”, by claiming this demonization, “violently if necessary”, he concludes.