There's one black Republican U.S. Senator, Tim Scott from South Carolina. Last year he torpedoed the nomination of Thomas Farr to be a district court judge in North Carolina because of Farr's direct history of voter suppression and of ties to white supremacists. Right-wing groups, who of course hold dear the goal of suppressing black votes, are trying to revive the nomination. Their efforts to do that with Sen. Scott are badly, badly backfiring.
Scott met with Farr again Wednesday at the request of Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and at the same time Scott received a letter from more than two dozen "conservative leaders, activists, elected officials and attorneys"—including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, because that's not at all inappropriate—pressuring him to reconsider. They did not approach this smartly, telling Scott he was being used by "unprincipled left-wing activists who hate Tom" and suggesting that the senator was complicit in this liberal attack. "Joining with those who taunt every political opponent a 'racist' as a partisan political tactic to destroy their reputations is not helpful to the cause of reconciliation," they whitesplained to him.
Bad idea. "For some reason the authors of this letter choose to ignore ... facts, and instead implicate that I have been co-opted by the left and am incapable of my own decision making," he told McClatchy. Then he turned on the fire. "Why they have chosen to expend so much energy on this particular nomination I do not know, but what I do know is they have not spent anywhere near as much time on true racial reconciliation efforts, decrying comments by those like [Republican U.S. Rep.] Steve King, or working to move our party together towards a stronger, more unified future."
The poison-pen writers didn't even bother to do their homework, suggesting that Scott hadn't bothered to meet with Farr or research the truth. "I have met with him multiple times over the past 18 months, both in person and via phone," Scott explained, and his research into a Justice Department memo from the George H. W. Bush administration "raise[d] serious questions about the level of involvement Mr. Farr had in the Helms campaign," referring to a voter-suppression tactic deployed by Sen. Jesse Helms' 1990 campaign.
It looks like rather than taking Scott's criticisms to heart, his colleagues are going to try to pressure him, and that this nomination is coming back. His South Carolina colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham, also the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee, says "I don't think [Farr] had a fraught record on race. I think the mail-out was disgusting in 1990, and [Farr] had nothing to do with it." Just like Christine Blasey Ford was attacked in high school, but it wasn't Brett Kavanaugh who did it. Graham wants to continue to meet with Tillis and with North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and apparently enlist them into browbeating Scott.
That's Trump's GOP. There's no room for principled opposition. There's no collegiality, even within the Republican conference. McConnell doesn't need Scott's vote on this anymore, so now it's ultimately his choice. He can totally ignore the only black Republican in the Senate and roll right over him, or do the right thing.