Trump's Cynical Supreme Court 'Feminism' Will Dismantle Women's Rights

On Saturday, Empowerment Queen Donald Trump announced he plans on giving a gift to all women, but especially to the white women voters who have theoretically soured on his presidency: his Supreme Court nominee will be, you guessed it, a woman! When abortion rights–along with environmental protections and the Affordable Care Act–are further gutted, at least we’ll know it was a Girl Boss who did it.

Trump made his promise during his rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Saturday night. “I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman,” Trump said to cheers, later adding that he has “numerous women on the list.” “I actually like women much more than I like men,” he said, which is perhaps a true statement if he’s referring to the many women who have accused him of sexual assault.

The women who are supposedly on Trump’s list are united by the fact that they are not Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton, but they still suck. Amy Coney Barrett, who is at the very top and whose policy agenda seems to be formed for the express purpose of diminishing women’s rights, would happily take a shiv to whatever abortion protections we still have left. Barrett, too, has advocated for more due process for people accused of sexual assault on campuses, by asserting that men accused of campus sexual assault are discriminated against because they are men. Then there’s Barbara Lagoa, a Federalist Society-linked appellate court judge who has evinced a particular disdain for voting rights, a higher minimum wage, and workers’ ability to sue their employers–but who is a Latina from Florida who could possibly help tip the election Trump’s way in the state. Allison Jones Rushing, a former clerk for Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas who once interned for the Alliance Defending Freedom, is also being considered, as are a host of other women who all seem terrible.

By promising to choose a woman, Trump is cynically using the gender identity of his pick as a shield from criticism that whoever he nominates will be very bad for women, not to mention workers and queer people, who are often, shockingly, women. But Trump has always viewed women as mere tools to further his own agenda. His Supreme Court pick is no different.