People who watched the recent Frontline episode on Justice Clarence and Ginni Thomas, would be forgiven if they came to the conclusion that both seem to have some unresolved issues they need to deal with.
The documentary painted Thomas as a man that endured several points of rejection from various communities. On the one hand as a dark skinned black man, he had to endure the ridiculous notion of the brown paper bag test perpetrated upon him by his own people. On the other hand, while attending the predominantly white St. John Vianney’s Minor seminary he endured racist bullying.
As a man who was trying to find acceptance, he initially finds it within the black power movement where he develops an admiration for black liberation and Malcolm X. His rejection of that supposedly stems from a protest that turned violent.
Given that he was rejected by two disparate communities, it seems difficult to understand what criteria he used to ultimately cast his lot with the conservative movement.
It becomes less difficult when you understand that above all else Clarence Thomas wanted to make his mark in society. His circuitous journey to the conservative side of town is understandable through the lens of opportunism rather than a philosophical kinship. As a black man, its a reality that within the Democrat side of the aisle, opportunities were present but there were a lot of people who would be ahead of him, especially for positions such as the Supreme Court. It is not unreasonable to assume that Clarence Thomas understood a transformation to conservatism would make him a valuable commodity. It was a game he was willing to play for the sake of creating a place for himself in the annals of history. Like many black conservatives, his judicial and philosophical ideals are not of paramount importance to the power echelon of white conservatism but rather the willingness to castigate present black political orthodoxy.
When you think about how Clarence Thomas used the predicament of his sister being on welfare in order to ingratiate himself to powerful white conservatives, you begin to understand that perhaps he is a man whose only principle is to get ahead at any cost.
During his Supreme Court hearings in which he would reach the pinnacle of his ambition, Clarence Thomas didn’t count on the allegations of former employee Anita Hill. Nonetheless, no-one should underestimate the cunningness of Clarence Thomas. After these allegations came out, Clarence Thomas played the black community like a fiddle. In front of an all white committee, broadcasted before millions of Americans, Thomas went into the “persecuted black man mode” when he referred to the hearings and the allegations as “a high tech lynching.” As a result of his targeting the reptilian aspect of the black psyche, his support within the black community shot up to 70%. The old trope of they don’t want a black man on the bench and they are using a black woman to bring down a black man came into play. Very few took into consideration that Thomas was exactly the type of black man white conservatives wanted on the Supreme Court. While most of the black community dismissed the allegations of Anita Hill, it is not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that the soon to be Justice Clarence Thomas perjured himself during the hearings on his nomination to the highest court in the nation.
Is Thomas a vengeful man? Clarence Thomas does seem to have a desire to get back at people who shunned him especially the progressive side of the black community. In a telling scene described by Dr. Glenn Loury, when he was invited to visit the newly confirmed Justice Clarence Thomas, with his feet on the desk, smoking a cigar said to Loury, “I’m going to be here forever, they’ve had their say now in my leisure I will have my say.”
Clarence Thomas is the ultimate beneficiary of affirmative action. He is the only black man in America with a guaranteed life time job. Yet he blames affirmative action for making his Yale degree useless because he had not received the kind of job offers he thought he should receive prior to being nominated to the Supreme Court. This non sequitur while not unexpected from a Clarence Thomas, should be called out for the nonsense that it is.
The recent controversy over Thomas’ friendship with Harlan Crow should not be imbued with anything that smacks of Crow being an admirer of Nazism despite his collection of Nazi memorabilia. Nonetheless, neither should anyone be gullible enough to believe that this friendship is based on simple mutual admiration. What will be interesting is that at some point, Justice Thomas will again roll out the old black man being persecuted routine. In fact, it has already been started by GOP Texas Senator Ted Cruz who said “Democrats hate Justice Thomas, and they have a special degree of hate for him because he is a black man. And their view is that an African-American is not allowed to be a conservative.”
The irony is that Justice Thomas who seems to eschew the black side of the tracks has become a powerful figure because he is black.
While Justice Thomas can be reduced to an opportunist bent on vengeance, his wife Ginni who comes from a Birch Society loving family seems to have lost all sense of reality. The documentary essentially described her as an anomaly because she shared her parents view of life.
Her story is interesting because by her own admission, she had to be deprogrammed from being in the infamous Lifespring cult which led her to become an anti-cult advocate. She even helped to set up workshops for congressional staffers to fight against cults. What makes this ironic is that she has seemingly embraced the lunacy of Q-anon which many liken to a cult. Perhaps she has not fully recovered from her days as a member of Lifespring. Her embrace of conspiracy theories around the 2020 presidential election and her “release the kraken” text to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows can lead one to think that Ginni Thomas has crossed the rubicon of rational thinking. Then came her email which stated “Biden crime family in ballot fraud, co-conspirators, elected officials, bureaucrat, social media, censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc. are being arrested and being detained for GITMO right right now and over coming days and will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition.” Add this to Ginni Thomas leaving a voicemail for Anita Hill twenty years after the hearings, asking for an apology and you have a woman who shows signs of being over the edge.
Whether Clarence Thomas had a genuine philosophical transformation or made a Faustian bargain to gain power may yet be determined. Ginni on the other hand, seems to be a figure of pathos. Raised in a family who adhered to the John Birch society principles and painted a “Leave it to Beaver” view of life she seems hellbent on restoring America to a time when perhaps unwittingly the idea of a Justice Clarence Thomas or any Supreme Court Justice of color would have been highly improbable.
There is no doubt that Clarence and Ginni Thomas are an intriguing couple on a Shakespearean level. Nonetheless, despite the intrigue their relationship has brought challenges to the Supreme Court and subsequently to the nation that Chief Supreme Court Justice Roberts is politically powerless to deal with. The US Senate may also prove powerless to deal with Thomas because of West Virginia Senator Joe Mancin and Arizona Senator Kristen Sinema who are both supported by Harlan Crow.
One gets the feeling that the Clarence and Ginni story is not over and that there is more to come. Their relationship and subsequent actions have brought greater skepticism to the Supreme Court as well as a well deserved suspicion about the political aspirations of people who are willing to tear down the nation in order to retain power. The Thomas’ story is one that needs to be told so the American people can get a realistic idea of how power really operates in Washington. Unfortunately, it’s an ugly story.