MAGA turns on 'weak and timid' Justice Barrett after key SCOTUS ruling

07 March

Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 6, 2017, CSPAN

When President Donald Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, Christian nationalists and far-right evangelicals applauded Trump for picking a hardcore social conservative who strongly identified with the "originalism" of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. And in 2022, they applauded Barrett once again when she vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in the controversial ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

But Barrett, on occasion, shows a willingness to vote with the High Court's three Democratic appointees: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. And on Wednesday, March 5, two Republicans — Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts —joined Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson in the 5-4 ruling Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

Now, many far-right MAGA Republicans are attacking Barrett for, as they see it, being disloyal to Trump.

NBC News legal reporter Lawrence Hurley, in an article published on March 6, explains, "MAGA activists have turned against one of President Donald Trump's own appointees to the Supreme Court: Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Appointed by Trump in 2020, Barrett is a staunch conservative who has joined major rulings in which the Court has moved U.S. law to the right, including on abortion and affirmative action. But that's not enough for some of Trump's most aggressive supporters, who think the former Notre Dame Law School professor has been a disappointment. MAGA supporters see what some call an independent streak as a sign she isn't sufficiently aligned with or loyal to Trump."

Far-right MAGA attorney Mike Davis, known for making inflammatory comments, attacked Barrett as "weak and timid," saying, "She is a rattled law professor with her head up her a--."

Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, on X, called Barrett a "DEI appointee," while another MAGA Republican, Jack Posobiec, described her a "DEI judge."

But Georgia State University College of Law professor Anthony Kreis told NBC News, "It seems to me there is this impulse where personal loyalty to Donald Trump in an unquestioned way is seen as a requirement for a sitting justice on the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter how conservative that person might be."

The conservative National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke Charles C.W. Cooke defends Barrett in a separate article that was also published on March 6.

Cooke writes, "Barrett is a terrific justice, and, in most cases, those who are criticizing her are forgetting the proper role of the judiciary….. Barrett is extremely intelligent, and she has a coherent and thoughtful approach toward the law.… Barrett voted with the majority in overturning Roe, in killing affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., and in upholding the Second Amendment in Bruen; she has some quibbles with the methodology in the lattermost case, as is her right."

Cooke added, "She's been terrific on issues concerning separation of powers and freedom of religion, and on protecting the authority of the legislature. She is a solid originalist, and, on that score, she is better than all but a handful of the justices who have served in the modern era."

Read Lawrence Hurley's full NBC News' article at this link and Charles C.W. Cooke's National Review commentary here.

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