Bud Harris, World War II bomber pilot and highly decorated war hero, and a personal hero of mine, coined this phrase to me during the Anita Hill scandal at Thomas’s confirmation hearings in 1991. Bud has passed but his words and prescience linger on.
A misunderstanding of one’s own identity is the cornerstone of being out of synchronization with one’s peers. I think I know who I am, and if I do not, I wish someone would tell me that I do not.
Someone should tell Clarence Thomas who he is.
He is of humble origins but has forgotten them. He has aspired to the American dream, climbing the heights of jurisprudence at least on a superficial level. Yale Law School. Appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by a war hero President, George H.W. Bush. Never mind.
Some of his dubious accomplishments are: stopping the Florida recount in 2000, deciding that the second amendment permitted individuals, not only well-regulated militias; to carry guns (2008) (CDC figures show that gun violence affects blacks twice as much as whites); allowing dark money to corrupt campaign finance (2010), diminishing anti-discrimination features of the Voting Rights act of 1965; breaking down the wall of separation of state and religion (2014). His latest notable accomplishment is issuing the lone dissent in turning over Trump’s purloined classified documents and asking his colleagues if he had to disclose special favors, gifts, accommodations and private jet travel from his billionaire friends. Since these colleagues said “no,” he did not. Why would a Supreme Court justice need ethical advice? Really?
And of course, the fact that his wife and he never discussed any of the above for their 35 years of marriage, not even her wack-a-doodle efforts to aid the Capitol insurrectionists. Only morons think that husbands and wives discuss anything at all. And let’s not forget his consistent opposition to women’s reproductive rights as well as joining in with his Taliban oriented colleagues in striking down Roe v. Wade. This is the pendulum swung like a guillotine.
The consequences of these ideological bête noirs have plunged our country deeper into the mud. Virtually unlimited access to all kinds of firearms, mass shootings with weapons of war-- legally purchased, the states fighting over some states criminalizing health care providers in other states where abortion is legal, possible prosecution of women travelling from their home state to obtain an abortion, and states acting like this was the 1850s by pursuing individuals into other states to enforce their retrogressions. Like the fugitive slave act. Like the Dred Scott decision. And now Massachusetts declaring war on Texas over contraception pills.
And here in Florida, our DeSantis rubber stamp legislature now wishes to cap abortion at six weeks when women may not even know they are pregnant. Thank you, Justice Thomas.
Does Clarence Thomas know who he is? Well, forgive the pun, but the jury has come back after deliberating since he was appointed in 1991. In 32 years, Thomas has done his fair share in turning the founding fathers in their constitutional graves, and has done more to damage the principles of the republic than anyone since John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, both of whom had the honesty to announce their treachery by leaving the Union.
Thomas should announce his decency by resigning from the Supreme Court. Congress should announce its decency by calling corruption hearings to investigate the justices who have sanctimoniously and hypocritically said nothing about Thomas, by filing articles of impeachment or seeking his resignation, as they did when they were a fair and deliberative body when they asked Abe Fortas to do so for far less financial indiscretions and by accepting a $15,000 fee for lecturing at American University. Fortas stepped down. So should Thomas.
