Sometimes we opinion writers wonder whether the people we discuss ever read our stuff. After all, even the lowliest pixel-stained wretch like me dreams of one day penning a piece that reaches the eyes of an important policy-maker, or somehow Influences the Discourse. I suppose it’s the disease of all journalistic conceit: You hope, through the surpassing eloquence and persuasive appeal of your rhetoric, that you can play a role for the better.
So in that spirit, I want to reach out to Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor and give her some 100 percent sincere advice that I hope she takes to heart: You’re fine right where you are, slay queen. Please do not listen to all those negative nellies and bean-counting bigots telling you to resign from the Supreme Court immediately, while Democrats still hold both the White House and the Senate. Don’t let these cynical partisans rip away the most important achievement of your life — sitting next to six Republican-appointed justices in a perpetual minority until you expire — for “reasons.” Ignore the haters!
You are a strong, wise Latina, after all, and have every right to be proud of your tenure on the court — all those influential majority opinions you’ve written. You are held in the highest esteem by your peers on the bench, are universally trusted, and have a reputation for running a truly professional staff of clerks. Meanwhile, every time some entryist Democrat snob like Josh Barro — the guy used to be a Republican, which tells you everything you need to know about how trustworthy he is — pipes up with a piece saying “Sonia Sotomayor Must Retire,” I hear the insufferable sound of the white man trying to drag a tough woman down by appealing to racist conceits like “long-term planning.” To wit, this unforgivable argument from Barro:
Sonia Sotomayor will turn 70 this June. If she retires this year, Biden will nominate a young and reliably liberal judge to replace her. Republicans do not control the Senate floor and cannot force the seat to be held open like they did when Scalia died. Confirmation of the new justice will be a slam dunk, and liberals will have successfully shored up one of their seats on the court — playing the kind of defense that is smart and prudent when your only hope of controlling the court again relies on both the timing of the deaths or retirements of conservative judges, plus not losing your grip on the three seats you already hold.
Can you not smell the bigotry malodorously wafting off such fetid “logic?” The preposterous insult to female and Latina achievement? He is suggesting that the job is bigger than you, bigger than all you’ve striven so hard to achieve. Don’t listen to such poison. (And for the love of God, don’t take career advice from some Republican.)
And it’s even more pointless to listen to this guy Nate Silver, wielding his data and actuarial charts like a bespectacled Grim Reaper. Devoid of any sort of heart, or any appreciation for just how much being a Supreme Court justice means to your personal journey, he instead lobs easily dismissed arguments such as “a Supreme Court seat is orders of magnitude more important than most political matters.” He’s not even trying to think about you, Sonia. Don’t be cowed by arguments about how the Senate math looks bad in the foreseeable future for Democrats. Don’t listen to people who harp on the fact that your diabetes is so severe that you travel with a personal nurse. Just as the 14th Amendment didn’t enact Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics, you have no need to allow Nate Silver’s gobbledygook political and actuarial statistics in your life either.
Your good friend, New York representative Nydia Velazquez, clearly knows the score. Reacting not only to Senator Richard Blumenthal (who gently floated the idea of your retirement last week) but, really, to all racists everywhere, Velazquez thundered that “forcing the only Latina on the Court to retire isn’t going to get us a liberal majority back.” And she is clearly right! No need to investigate that argument any further; it’s pointless anyway!
At the end of the day, Justice Sotomayor, you know in your heart what the right thing to do is: Don’t let any of these tiny souls, these malignant professionals, bully you out of your robes. None of them can tell you what to do, and since you only live once, why not live your best life — as a Supreme Court justice? Once again: I mean this 100 percent sincerely.