When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020 and President Donald Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett as a replacement, it was a definite game changer for the U.S. Supreme Court. Ginsburg was a liberal appointee of former President Bill Clinton, while Barrett is considered an "originalist" who was greatly influenced by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Moreover, Barrett doesn't have the libertarian leanings of former Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee who was right-wing in his judicial philosophy yet voted with Ginsburg and other High Court liberals on key issues involving gay rights and abortion rights. Very much a social conservative, Barrett was part of the 2022 majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — which overturned Roe v. Wade after 49 years.
Yet in 2025, Barrett is being attacked as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by many far-right MAGA Republicans. And journalist Jill Filipovic explains why she finds that troubling in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on April 12.
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"What is the job of the American judiciary?" Filipovic writes. "If you said to decide cases based on the law and the U.S. Constitution, you would be correct — unless you're playing by MAGA rules. Rabid supporters of Donald Trump, and the president himself, have a different view of what judges are for. In their opinion, judges should be loyalists, backing whatever the president does, no matter how unconstitutional. And they're putting us all in jeopardy. Judges who have ruled against Trump and his policies have come under MAGA fire, with some facing dire threats."
Filipovic continues, "The latest target — in fact, a perennial target — of this ire is Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who found herself in the crosshairs over a dissent objecting to the Trump Administration’s decision to implement an obscure and more than two-centuries-old law, intended for use in times of war, to deport migrants they claimed were gang members, without due process."
Filipovic notes some of the venom that is now being directed at Barrett. For example, MAGA Republican Tricia Flanagan said of Barrett, "Here's the simple truth that no one wants to admit — most women are not emotionally fit to be on the Supreme Court…. (because) women tend to be more emotionally vulnerable." And Laura Loomer described Barrett as a "DEI appointee."
"We're in a new political universe now, one in which the chief presumption is that white men are inherently qualified for their roles while women and racial minorities are presumptively not," Filipovic warns. "In some ways, this is very retro, harkening back to days when these groups were formally excluded from public office, many jobs and public participation writ large, and when various white male authority figures would opine on their lack of aptitude for these roles."
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Filipovic continues, "But MAGA ideology is even worse: A person's professional and social fitness is determined solely by loyalty to a single strong man. Intelligence, credentials, experience, expertise, even the basic ability to function as a working adult? None of that matters."
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Jill Filipovic's full Daily Beast op-ed is available at this link (subscription required).