Tucker: Democrats will justify court-packing by citing diversity
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host explains the key moments from vice presidential debate
Editor's Note: This piece is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the Oct. 8, 2020 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
Did you catch the vice presidential debate Wednesday night? If you did, you've got to think the Biden people are beginning to regret picking Kamala Harris for the ticket.
Maybe on paper, Harris made sense as the old guy's running mate. But on stage, she was not appealing unless you enjoyed being lectured in school by substitute teachers who tried to mask their insecurity with aggression. You probably don't want four more years of that. Even 90 minutes of it was hard to take.
The good news is we did learn at least one important new thing from watching. We learned how Democrats plan to use identity politics going forward. We already knew that identity politics is an effective way, maybe the most effective way, to get Democrats to the polls in an election year. That's why they do it.
What we learned last night is that identity politics has a bigger purpose. It is the justification that Democrats will use to tear down our centuries-old system of government and replace it with one-party rule with themselves in charge. The evidence came toward the end of last night's debate when Mike Pence asked Harris what the moderator didn't ask, but should have: Does Joe Biden plan to pack the Supreme Court of the United States? Does the Biden administration intend to convert our third branch of government into a partisan superlegislature with lifetime tenure?
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It's a pretty simple question. It's a vital question. Political courts are the hallmark of banana republics and dictatorships. We don't want that here. Yet for weeks, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have refused to say what they will do if elected. So last night, Pence pushed again. Here's what happened.
HARRIS: Let's talk about packing the court then ... do you know that of the 50 people who President Trump appointed to the Court of Appeals for lifetime appointments, not one is Black? This is what they've been doing. You want to talk about packing a court? Let's have that discussion.
Was Kamala Harris trying to dodge the question? Unfortunately, she was not dodging it. She was answering the question and she was answering it honestly, believe it or not.
If she and Joe Biden win next month, they will indeed pack the Supreme Court. They'll justify doing that in the name of diversity. They will tell you the Trump administration is racist for not selecting judges based on the color of their skin. They'll tell you that nine is a very racist number of Supreme Court seats. (That's a number some dead White guy come up with a long time ago. See? It's racist.) They'll tell you we need to diversify the court. And of course, that means a supermajority of partisan Democrats. That's what they're going to tell you. For now, they're not telling you anything, though.
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We do know that none of this is going to stop with the Supreme Court. This summer, Barack Obama used a funeral service to tell us that the filibuster is a relic of Jim Crow. Any Senate procedure that limits the power of the Democratic Party is, by definition, racist. That's the new standard.
Identity politics is the most powerful political weapon they have. Don't take it at face value. There's a purpose for it. And of course, identity politics is also a handy shield. We saw that repeatedly last night. At one point, Pence pointed out that Democrats have attacked Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett for the crime of being Catholic. That seems out of bounds. How did Harris respond?
HARRIS: First of all, Joe Biden and I are both people of faith. And it's insulting to suggest that we would knock anyone for their faith.
Now, what exactly does Kamala Harris worship apart from power? She seems like the most secular candidate ever to run for national office. That's not an attack on her, by the way. There are plenty of decent secular people. But Kamala Harris identified as a person of faith, and that's all that matters.
The progressive left understands race and gender and, yes, religious faith as a means to an end. They're identities, they don't have independent meanings. They are tools used to win arguments and achieve power. Kamala Harris cycled through various identities last night. "I'm speaking," she barked again and again when Mike Pence tried to respond to her.
Democrats thought that was appealing. What world do they live in? They must have because already you can find t-shirts and mugs online with the phrase "I'm speaking." Obviously, it was planned. Kamala's many allies in the media were impressed, too. They knew exactly what Kamala Harris was really saying: I'm a woman. And they were unanimous in their conclusion: Mike Pence, who's been married the same woman for 35 years, interrupted Kamala Harris because he's a sexist who hates women.
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These are the same people who believe, as a scientific matter, that gender fluidity is real, that you can choose your gender. But women are also simultaneously so different from men, you have to treat them in a completely different way or you're a bad person. And if you do that, you're "mansplaining." That's what they told us on TV last night.
What kind of adult uses the term "mansplaining"? Get some self-respect. And by the way, think it through. Why did no one accuse Donald Trump or Joe Biden of "mansplaining" when they repeatedly interrupted each other at last week's debate? When a man interrupts a woman, it must be sexism. There's no other explanation. In order to treat women equally, we have to treat them very differently from men so as not to disturb their delicate sensibilities. It's insane. And if the consequences for this country weren't so serious, it would be amusing. Last night, the same people who denounced Pence as a sexist went on at length about Kamala Harris' charming, girlish smile.
Obviously, these are people who are projecting their own sad, empty, hollow personal lives onto the rest of the country. No matter what they're doing, though, it's just too stupid for a great nation.
At one point during the debate, Mike Pence, to his credit, tried to elevate it a little bit and talk about something that actually matters: The habit we've all fallen into of thinking of each other as members of categories rather than as human beings and as individuals, as creations of God. (That's how people of faith think, by the way, Sen. Harris.) Whatever they're calling this kind of thinking right now, intersectionalism, identity politics, critical race theory, systemic racism, whatever. It's terrible. It's a cul-de-sac. It will wreck the country.
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So Mike Pence tried to make that point. No, he said last night, the police aren't systemically racist, whatever that is. America is a fundamentally good country. Now, that's a conversation worth having. That would be edifying. That does mean something. But the media ignored it. They spent most of the night talking about a housefly that landed Mike Pence's forehead.
In fact, if we're being honest about it and putting some annoying behavior aside, Wednesday night's debate was a pretty respectful affair considering we're three weeks out from an election in the most intense political year of our lifetimes. There were a handful of minor interruptions, as you would expect. But for the most part, both of them, Pence and Harris, kept to their time limits. In fact, they spoke roughly for the same amount of time last night. That's worth noting, maybe celebrating.
And yet for our media class, the main takeaway was still that Mike Pence is a sexist and by the way, there was a fly on his forehead. We definitely are better than that. The presidential election is a little over three weeks from right now. We still have no idea who's going to win. But no matter who does win in November, there's one thing for certain. This country desperately needs a better class of leaders in charge. These people are ridiculous.