Two years ago, Biden promised to pick a Black woman for the Supreme Court to secure what became a game-changing endorsement from Rep. James E. Clyburn . After finishing fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and a distant second in Nevada, the former vice president relied on African American voters in the South to save his campaign.
Around the same time, then-President Donald Trump ran a Super Bowl commercial to highlight his support for criminal justice reform and touted the bipartisan First Step Act that he had signed. The Trump campaign hoped to make inroads with Black men.Vice President Harris, who appeared Friday with Biden and Jackson, was not on the debate stage in South Carolina. She dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination before any votes were cast.
Over the past year, Democrats who staked out soft-on-crime positions have faced intense backlash, even in blue big cities. Jackson’s emphasis on her family’s experience in law enforcement is part of the necessary and overdue corrective.Biden even read aloud from a statement issued by the Fraternal Order of Police during his speech introducing Jackson. He said the national organization expressed confidence that she’d “treat issues related to law enforcement fairly and justly.
Her nomination is a refreshingly feel-good reminder, despite the many dark chapters in American history, of our country’s capacity for self-improvement.
When someone begins facing malicious and specious conservative aggression that has nothing to do with their qualifications and everything to do with politics, 'defensiveness' is not a character fault ... and a better word could probably have been sought out