In general, the more “respectable” of Missouri’s Republican federal congressional delegation – which, if respectable is understood loosely, consists of Senator Roy Blunt and Rep. Ann Wagner (2nd Dist.) and maybe, just maybe, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (3rd Dist.) on a good day – have been cautious about showing too much enthusiasm for their party’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Blunt only “supported” the party nominee long before he endorsed Trump specifically, and the St. Louis Post Dispatch quoted Wagner as saying “that Trump had not earned her support because of “slurs and attacks.”
Since then, of course, The Donald has been vigorously on the attack, promiscuously slinging slurs, most notably at judges whose ethnicity or religion is other than white Christian of European origin. In an earlier interview Wagner went on to say that she was encouraged by Trump’s list of possible Supreme Court nominees should he win, although she would still “wait and see” before endorsing Trump.
I suppose Trump’s attack on a judge – whose impartiality he has wisely declined to challenge in court – hasn’t shown her enough yet because she still seems to be waiting. She characterizes the public indignation about the racism and abysmal ignorance of judicial procedure manifested by Trump’s personal attacks on Judge Curial as a “focus on personal disputes and grabby headlines, rather than the day-to-day concerns of Missourians and all Americans… .”
Doesn’t seem to occur to Wagner that Americans might be concerned by a potential racist president who believes that judges who don’t offer rich and famous folks like himself due deference must be biased. Nor does it concern her that a person like Trump could be in charge of selecting qualified judges – at least as long as his selections confirm her ideological biases.
Blunt seems to be caught in the same loop when it comes to judges:
“It’s wrong to be concerned about the heritage or ethnicity of a judge, and I do not think he should have said that,” said Blunt, R-Mo., who has previously said he will support his party’s nominee in November. “What I am concerned about with respect to judges is who appoints them and who confirms them.”
Yeah! That’s what we want. A dim-witted racist with no understanding of the judiciary to select powerful judges.
GOPers like Blunt and Wagner give the impression they’d prefer Godzilla to Hillary Clinton as long as Godzilla’s Supreme Court appointees were properly retrograde and, most importantly, properly deferent to the druthers of their corporate and financial industry patrons.
It’s hard to believe that American democracy has declined to the point that, for folks like Blunt and Wagner, the ideological biases of the person who selects judges is more important than his competence and fairness. It’s the same shameful dereliction of duty that has so far denied the superbly qualified Merrick Garland a seat on the Supreme Court because he was nominated by a black Democratic President who had the temerity to win two hotly-contested elections.