Donald Trump's view of judges is disqualifying

Source: Washington Examiner | June 8, 2016 | Timothy P. Carney

Miguel Estrada, the conservative judge who immigrated from Honduras as a teenager, was “especially dangerous, because,” Democratic Judiciary Committee aides wrote, “he is Latino.”

So Donald Trump, the liberal Hillary Clinton donor who has conned Republicans into nominating him for president, has shown this week that he thinks like a (slightly addled) liberal on judges. In this way, Trump demolishes the sole reason many conservatives ever had to vote for him in November.

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A constant refrain in the more radical corners of the Left today is that white people, because they are white people, don’t have the right or the ability to express valid opinions on certain questions. Trump, the candidate of white racial grievance, has adopted that logic and turned it around.

Democrats’ 2001 discrimination against Estrada was a different sort of judicial racialism. Democrats had to filibuster a Hispanic’s elevation to the D.C. Circuit Court, presumably, because it would be bad PR to filibuster a Hispanic’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. But still, it was a racial litmus test for judges’ qualifications. Trump may have been taking notes.

Trump’s liberal views on judges don’t end with his embrace of racial determinism. He also engages in the liberal practice of scolding judges and trying to disqualify them on flimsy grounds.

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An independent judiciary doesn’t fit will into certain left-wing strains of thought. Donald Trump, who scoffs at any constraints on executive power, feels the same way.

Trump’s other expressed views of the judiciary are equally dumb. He speaks about judges “signing bills.” He says he’ll pick judges who will investigate Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Combine these clueless arguments with his liberal view of the judiciary, and it’s impossible to trust his pledge to nominate conservative judges.

And if you don’t trust Trump to nominate conservative judges, you’re getting pretty close to zero reasons a conservative should support him. For many conservatives, “judges” is the only argument.

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