Column
Trump’s Female SCOTUS Nominee Will Be Bad for Women
Nominating a female Supreme Court Justice helps the president, not women
Donald Trump announced at a North Carolina rally this week that his appointee to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be a woman — “a very talented, very brilliant woman.”
The president’s promise has nothing to do with upholding Ginsburg’s legacy as a feminist stalwart, of course, or even caring about women’s representation in positions of power. Nominating a woman to the Supreme Court is just a cynical attempt to inoculate Trump against further accusations of misogyny as the election draws closer, and to preemptively paint any Democrats who oppose Trump’s pick as hypocrites who only uphold feminist values when it suits them.
It’s the same move John McCain’s presidential campaign tried to pull in 2008 when it brought on Sarah Palin as a running mate — Republicans thought they would be able to appeal to moderate women who were disappointed that they couldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton (a strategy that ultimately backfired). Conservatives called any feminist who wasn’t excited about Palin’s ascension a hypocrite.
But benefitting from feminism is not the same thing as being a feminist, and there are no guarantees that having…
