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I’ve tried writing this several times but I just don’t have the right words to articulate how I feel about Amy Coney Barrett. I keep coming back to this saying we have that a nation’s leaders reflect its people. I suppose Barrett’s confirmation is just that — a reflection of this nation’s soul, which is drenched in innocent blood shed on American soil and around the world. There are good people here, but… there’s always a but. A lot of the good people aren’t even considered American because maybe they weren’t born here. Maybe their parents weren’t born here. Maybe their families have been here for generations and it doesn’t make a difference. They work harder than some born and raised Americans, but they’re still second class citizens in many aspects. There are good people, but the nation as a whole is tainted. One bad fish can spoil the whole pond and all that. 

I try not to be overly pessimistic, but it’s just so comical to me that my parents came here so that I could have a better life and what I got is… this. A supremacist who said he’s the least racist person in the room and compared himself to Abraham Lincoln and a Supreme Court justice who says she can’t apply the law to a hypothetical situation. I took one civil liberties class and all I did was apply the law to hypotheticals. My two exams both consisted of me having to pretend how a Supreme Court justice would rule on certain cases — and why. Meanwhile, she was explicitly told that voter intimidation is illegal and she said she wouldn’t be commenting on hypotheticals. I’ve seen a lot of people call her stupid, but she isn’t. Incompetent for the job, yes. But not stupid. She’s conniving. She knew exactly how to dodge every question at her hearing and she did it artfully. She is what Trump thinks he is. 

I don’t know how to make light of this yet. I can take the piss out of Trump because, you know, what else is there to do? He’s a prick and I’m sick of seeing him everywhere, but maybe he’ll die soon. Eventually. Barrett, though? I feel like she’s one of the Founding Fathers reincarnated. Faith and family to parade around and just ugliness underneath it all. They said all men are created equal and then counted Black people as one-fifth of a person. She has adopted Black children and called systemic racism a policy issue. I think Barrett is a clear reflection of the people who wrote the Constitution and the country they envisioned for people like them. It’s nauseating. 

-Mackayleigh