Joe Biden pledged to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court while running for president. However, many criticize his commitment to holding that promise as blatant affirmative action. In fact, a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 76% of Americans would prefer Biden consider all possible nominees rather than limiting his pool of candidates to black women.
He won’t, of course. His pledge to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court was critical in getting the support of Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and ultimately saving his campaign from pending death during the Democrat primaries.
Sadly, affirmative action picks are a favorite pastime of the Democratic Party. In fact, many candidates and nominees have been blatant affirmative action picks. Here are the five worst of them.
Hillary Clinton
Despite positioning herself for a presidential run for years, Hillary Clinton’s first quest for the White House was thwarted by Barack Obama. But Hillary bided her time, serving four years as Obama’s Secretary of State before building up a campaign infrastructure for 2016, which was to be “her turn.” Even Barack Obama helped convince Joe Biden to sit out 2016 to give Hillary her shot before wholeheartedly endorsing Clinton, saying, “I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office.”
She wasn’t the most qualified candidate in history, that’s for sure, but it didn’t matter anyway. Hillary ultimately won a hard-fought primary against Bernie Sanders but only because of what many (in the Democratic Party) believed was a rigged system. With Hillary as the nominee, she seemed destined to achieve a historic first as the first woman president in history. But Hillary was undeniably phony, and no one really liked her, so she lost to Donald Trump.
Sonia Sotomayor
We’ve always known Justice Sonia Sotomayor was an affirmative action pick to the Supreme Court. But she seems determined to prove it. For example, during the recent case over Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate, she demonstrated a lack of knowledge or understanding of the Tenth Amendment when she said, “I’m not sure I understand the distinction why the states would have the power [to institute a mandate such as OSHA’s], but the federal government wouldn’t,” during oral arguments.
That’s not to say Barack Obama wasn’t alerted to Sotomayor’s lack of constitutional knowledge. In fact, he was warned by Harvard law professor Larry Tribe to nominate someone other than her back in 2009 after Justice David Souter retired. “If you were to appoint someone like Sonia Sotomayor, whose personal history and demographic appeal you don’t need me to underscore, I am concerned that the impact within the Court would be negative in these respects,” Tribe wrote. “Bluntly put, she’s not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is.”
Kamala Harris
In 2020, Joe Biden was widely seen as the most electable Democrat, but there were just three problems: his age, his gender, and his race. As an old white guy, he was the epitome of everything the left hates. So Biden committed to selecting a black woman as his running mate to compensate for his aged white-maleness.
And for some reason, he landed on Kamala Harris, whose own presidential campaign was such a disaster that she dropped out before Iowa. She literally brought nothing substantive to the ticket, only demographic appeal. And, well, you’ve seen the results. Her tenure has been so disastrous that she is the least popular vice president in history.
Rachel Levine
Can anyone honestly claim that if Rachel Levine weren’t transgender, you would know who he is?
Biden announced his intention to nominate Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine (born Richard Levine) for assistant health secretary before he even took office. Levine should never have been nominated, much less confirmed. And not just because he’s a man who identifies as a woman or because he endorsed subjecting kids to chemical castration. In 2020, Levine faced calls for his resignation over “the horrific results of the [health] department’s COVID-19 policy” on nursing homes and long-term care facilities. He also removed his mother from such a facility while others could not do so.
Not only was Levine put in his position solely for being transgender, but the Biden administration, obsessed with affirmative action picks and milestones, promoted Levine to be a four-star admiral of the U.S. Public Health Services (USPHS) Commissioned Corps and even dubbed him the “first female four-star admiral” even though he is a male.
Barack Obama
But none of these compare to the ultimate affirmative action pick in American history: Barack Obama. Elected to the Senate in 2004, he was still an inexperienced junior senator when he announced his presidential campaign in Feb. 2007. Moreover, Obama was easily the least experienced candidate amongst a crowded field of more qualified Democrats—even Hillary Clinton.
The radical, inexperienced senator from Illinois was an undeniable phenomenon and would defeat the more experienced and moderate John McCain in the general election. And the results were a disaster. Obama presided over the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression, the largest deficits in American history, and a radical transformation of social norms. His presidency was constantly plagued by scandal and policy failure, making him the worst president in American history—though Joe Biden is currently making a solid run for the title.
