Trump Picks “Scalia Clone” to Replace Scalia on the Supreme Court

January 31, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

When the ghoulishly reactionary U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died last year, Obama’s choice to replace him was the conservative, “bipartisan” Merrick Garland. Powerful sections of the ruling class treated Garland as absolutely unacceptable. Republicans stonewalled his nomination and gambled on getting the chance to put someone on the Court who would continue to advance their vision of a reactionary, Christian fascist America. On Tuesday, their wish came true. Donald Trump announced Antonin Scalia’s replacement: Scalia’s “clone”—Neil Gorsuch, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

As we wrote when Scalia died:

Until his death, Antonin Scalia was a “vicious operative for the capitalist-imperialist class who sat on their Supreme Court...” He “made his bones” by viciously opposing affirmative action and voting rights for Black and other minority people; the rights of women to abortion; the rights of gay and lesbian people to marry and raise children, and to generally live their lives free from government persecution; and the basic legal rights of defendants in criminal cases. He consistently fought for capital punishment, on and off the bench....