Summary Talks in the Othmer: Corey Robin on Making Sense of Clarence Thomasâs America (Youtube) www.youtube.com
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Corey Robin Why did I write this book? What convinced me? So, yeah, I had written a lot about conservatism, and, I thought I was done with it. Didn't feel like I had much more to say. And then, I was approached there was an anthology on African American political thought, and These are academics, and it was all liberals and leftists, and the people that everybody loves in the African American tradition.
Corey Robin And I you know, they realized they had no conservatives there, and so they had to add 1. And Clarence Thomas’s the logical person. And, I was I was I think like many people, I all I really knew about Clarence Thomas was Anita Hill, basically. That was kind of my the extent of it. And I was just shocked to discover The the story of this man, his past, which we'll talk about more, and not just His past as a black nationalist on the left, but the the persistence of that influence on his jurisprudence And, was doubly shocked that nobody seemed to know about it or talk about it.
Corey Robin There's a very famous opening, line in, Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, which is the epigraph from my book and it's it's told from the point of view of the narrator who's black and says, you know, You don't see me. You always see somebody else. And the enigma of Clarence Thomas is not just about Clarence Thomas’s, it's really about the country, many of whom many of whose citizens don't actually See this man and what he is saying. And so I think there was just a puzzle to me about this, Person who was hiding in plain sight.
n/a So as you've just said, the the driving thesis of the book, you know, is is people watching might already know. Is it Clarence Thomas is and has always been a black nationalist? There's some variety from his days in college when he was devoted to Malcolm x All the way up through his present tenure at in on the supreme court bench. So could you describe, just to set the scene, like, the first part of that arc? Like, what What's he like in his youth?
Corey Robin You know, when he was testifying before congress, before the senate committee, He was asked by senator Howell Heflin, who was the senator from Alabama, very thick Alabama accent that I won't try to imitate. And he was asked, you know, what was your major in college? And he said, English literature. And he said, what was and then he was asked, what was your minor? And he said, protest.
Corey Robin Clarence Thomas was a campus militant. He came to Holy Cross In 1968, he was part of a remarkable, class of young black men who had been recruited to integrate to start the process of integration. Very illustrious class of of of young black men who would go on, To make their mark in a in a variety of venues. And, they formed early on the Black Student Union, Which was already a choice, a political choice to use that term of art black. It had been popular on the West Coast, not so much on the East Coast among Campus, students.
Corey Robin And they had a analysts, and Clarence Thomas was the secretary treasurer. He typed it up. And, it has been 3 years since I wrote this book, so I don't remember the specific all the specifics, but, It was straight out of kind of a black nationalist, black separatist, pantheon. Black men should not be involved romantically with black women. Black men are the source of pride And Salvation for the Black Community.
Corey Robin Black people need to have their own institutions, so on and so forth. And, Thomas, you know, this was these weren't just words for him. He he perspectives. He, you know, participated in in all kinds of activities. The most famous of which was he led a walkout of students, black students, In his senior year, I think it was, or his junior year at Holy Cross in protest against some policies that had happened.
Corey Robin And, you know, you can see him during that walkout. He'd they go off campus and there's a photograph of him and a couple of others and, you know, with the black power salute, he's wearing, a beret and, you know, he was it was part of the whole ethos. He Memorize the speeches of Malcolm x, which he could still recite decades later, by listening to records. That's how people, you know, Heard those things. It wasn't like a YouTube video or anything like that.
Corey Robin And, you know, was really influenced by Malcolm X, read the autobiography, And so far that we could talk more about it. But it just gives you a sense that he was and I'll just say 1 other thing was that among a group of campus militants, he was Especially noted and, you know, given what subsequently happened is kind of interesting for his militancy against interracial, relationships and dating and romance. And he would used to if he saw interracial couples on campus, he would call them out and confront them. Understanding, you know, among this group, he was he was known as, you know, fairly outspoken, Confrontational kind of person.
n/a And, you know, again, like, much of the book is dedicated to demonstrating that he's retained, even though he's moved to the right, that same sense of fatalism About race and racism in America. There are a lot of stellar and telling quotes throughout the book. But 1 early 1 that really got me and I think of tells a story is 1 from the Atlantic, I think just about 4 years actually before he was put on the court. So this isn't like a college or teenage thing, where he says, quote, there's nothing you can do to get past black skin. I don't care how educated you are, how good you are.
n/a You'll never have the same contacts or opportunities. You'll never be seen as equal to whites. You quote a 1985 commencement address. I'm here to say that discrimination, racism and bigotry have gone no place and probably never will. You know?
n/a And in his opinions on the bench early in his tenure, he's still musing aloud that we might not ever end racial discrimination. So I have 2 questions about this. 1 is what is race fundamentally for Thomas? I mean, he doesn't seem to believe in race As a matter of biological superiority or inferiority. But at the same time, he does think it's this durable, real, heritable characteristic.
n/a And 1 that's always going to matter and 1 that isn't necessarily subject to social deconstruction. So so what what is race fundamentally framing? Like, is it a fully natural intangible thing for him, or does he acknowledge that there is Some amount of arbitrariness and some amount of, I don't know, acculturation that goes into it. So
Corey Robin I think, you know, Thomas’s, Black nationalism has a long history and it's a contested tradition and it had goes through very different iterations. Oftentimes, it's been a fairly conservative philosophy in ideology in this country. But in the 19th century, 1 of the I sort of the early versions is that the black the the black people are a people And, who have a fate and destiny apart from the rest of America. And I think for Thomas, that's kind of how he thinks about Race. It's the it's certainly not heritable or biological or anything like that, but that it is A complex product of history, tradition, culture, institutions that have Sort of, come together to set up set black people apart from the rest of America.
Corey Robin And so I think that's what he sees. And then even more beyond that is racism, the difference between race and racism. And I think that's where you get an even more fatalistic view because Thomas thinks that racism really has no roots. And because it sort of has no historical roots, It doesn't really have a historical ending, in his mind. And, you know, he's a Catholic Christian.
Corey Robin So you could see it as a kind of, you know, religious sort of sensibility about the, the sinfulness of the soul or something like that. But in the end, I think that's, the the really hard part about about Thomas is is this sense that Racism is pervasive and per durable and With no with no obvious exit ramp, with no obvious way out. And I and I and I I think those would be the sort of the the the critical Ideas there.
n/a Right. And is that I mean, what distinguishes him fundamentally from, I guess, a mainstream black conservatism you might find in somebody like Tim Scott or like a Ben Carson, that sense of, like, you know, while some conservatives might argue that the goal is a kind of Colorblind society that is attainable if you think in certain ways. What distinguishes Mark Thomas’s off is that he doesn't believe in that future In a way that some other black conservatives might. Yeah.
Corey Robin I mean, this is a really important thing. And again, 1 of the ways he's misread both by his defenders, And his critics. So for instance, on affirmative action, foremost, I mean, most white conservatives and a fair amount number of black conservatives We'll say that the the wrong of affirmative action is that it violates the principle of color blindness of of of Treating everybody equally and as individuals without regard to race. That's their standard line. At least it was up until Trump came along.
Corey Robin It's Changed somewhat since then. What's what's so, mind boggling about, Thomas Is that he has never accepted that argument at all. He doesn't believe in color blindness. He says this very explicitly when he's in the Reagan administration. He says it less explicitly in his his jurisprudence, but he doesn't believe in it.
Corey Robin He doesn't think it's possible. Right? We will never get past Racism. And so that really does distinguish him, certainly from white conservatives and also, as you say, from a fair number of black conservatives. And that was true back in the eighties as well.
Corey Robin There was a round table convened, by a magazine of black conservatism. Many who have, you know, are still around, actually, people like Glenn Loury and so forth. And, you know, Thomas really distinguishes himself even in that crew in the the the pessimism of his view about the persistence of racism?
n/a So I think that when most people think about black nationalism, they think about Separation and independence. The idea that white people, their culture, their institutions, can't really be trusted. And That black people have to make their own way in the world somehow. Part of your argument that Thomas is a black nationalist, is rooted in places where you see him making the case that black people should remove themselves from politics and trying to contest white dominated political institutions. They should try to succeed in the free market instead, which he's thesis is kind of open ground.
n/a At the same time though, like, he is A justice on the Supreme Court who was put there by predominantly white political movement. So how does he reconcile that if at all? Like, how does he address the tension between Saying you can't really expect anything out of politics, you know, while being 1 of the most powerful political figures in the country. Presumably Working, you know, in his mind to advance the interests of black people.
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, it's an excellent question and 1 that I wrestled with A lot in the writing. So the first thing I would say is, you know, about his alliance with the conservative movement and the and the Republican Party. You know, there's a, Malcolm X had this famous you know, he repeated in several speeches, this famous imagery of the, the wolf and the fox. And, you know, the wolf is obviously your a predator and your enemy.
Corey Robin And the wolf is like the southern racist, overt the southern white racist, overt in his or her racism, doesn't pretend To be your friend, you know, will is a predator who will just go after you and obviously. But then there's the fox who smiles and pretends that He or she is your friend and is on your side and then will ultimately, you know, screw you or destroy you. And and and Malcolm X says that's kind of, you know, like the the liberal race white racist. Thomas’s That I cannot that that that imagery is very important to Thomas, and it was it was something he encountered right away when he came to the north. By the way, for those of you who don't know, he was born in Pinpoint, Georgia.
Corey Robin He spent his his childhood in in in the South, and then he comes North. And like many, African American students who came to the North, to to go to college, They they thought they were going to the promised land. They thought they were going to a place that was free of racism and got a rude awakening. And so, for Thomas, you know, this was this is where he felt like he, you know, he confronted the real truth of American racism. It wasn't in the South, which, you know, he said he was familiar with.
Corey Robin And just as an, an addition to that Or corollary to that, you know, he always felt like in the south, if you were black, whatever achievements you had And and and and and and and and acquired, they were yours or they were the black communities. In other words, you achieve things In spite of racism, in the North, he felt like the message was almost exactly the opposite, that your achievements Are be not in spite of being black, but because you're black. In other words, we helped you. We White liberal Northerners, we we we let you in. Right?
Corey Robin We let you come to Yale Law School, And your success is because of us. And so that's part of, for Thomas this, you know, this distinction. And so Thomas doesn't talk about the wolf and the fox. He talks about, the copperhead and the water moccasin. And I'm not sure which I think the copperhead is supposed to be like the wolf.
Corey Robin The water moccasins like the fox. We you know, crap the the the crafty pretends they're not dangerous, but they are. This is a long winded way of saying that for him, the Republican party is, an easier Entity to deal with. Because as he says, you know, in the Reagan administration, nobody ever smiles at you. Nobody pretends to be your friend, and I appreciate That.
Corey Robin By the way, his favorite song in college was, you know, that song smiling faces tell lies. You know, It that was that was the thing for him. And so I I I don't think there's such a contradiction for him about His relationship to the Republican Party. Now the harder prescient, I'm sorry I'm being really long winded. I just wanna make sure we're set up here, is, you know, his place on the court.
Corey Robin It's obvious to everybody and probably to Thomas that, you know, he was put on the Court to rip you know, he's put on the court to replace Thurgood Marshall. It was very important to the Republican party to have a black person be in that seat? And there were a couple of candidates, but, you know, he was the 1 chosen, and he was certainly not the most illustrious Jurist or scholar or anything like that. And I think that's 1 of those sort of Psychological tensions that I think are is very hard to bridge. I I don't know that there's much politically of significance It comes out of that though for Thomas.
Corey Robin I don't think he you know, I think in the end, he feels like he is using his power That he has to essentially tell black people to stop seeing the state as their friend. To stop Looking to liberals and, you know, these foxes and these, water moccasins that are gonna harm you, ultimately. And I think he sees himself as a kind of prophetic is the is a wrong word, but, you know, Well, put it this way. He knows he is loathed by African Americans. He has no illusions that he is Beloved, by the black community.
Corey Robin But he also thinks that's because he's saying a very hard truth To the black community. Many hard truths. 1 of which is the Democratic party, liberalism, the American state, These are not your friends. These are your enemies, and they will destroy you. They have destroyed you.
Corey Robin And, you know, I'm here to, you know, lay the path to some kind of resurrection.
n/a So going back just a little bit, I mean, why was Thomas ultimately chosen by the movement over other options that prescient didn't have connections to Malcolm X? And and mean, 1 of the 1 of the things I think you you hammer home over and over again over the course of the book is that his opinions on the bench are extraneous in the sense that you you don't really need His take on the conservative, position in order to win the case. Right? He's always sort of injecting Race. Not always, but often injecting race into decisions where it doesn't have to have to be there.
n/a It seems like he he's brought on a lot of Baggage. That I think that I think that people knew. I mean, there you write that there are people in Reagan administration who who understood his background as radical and, we're we're troubled by it or at least puzzled by it. So why why was that choice ultimately made?
Corey Robin That's a really good prescient would say 2 things. First of all, Thomas is a an amazing political perspectives, an operator. As it turns out, so is his wife. And, you know, he everybody has always said this about him. He, you know, he really knows how to work the levers.
Corey Robin And so, you know, he made early on an alliance with Clint Bullock, who was 1 of the Barack was some of the really influential people in the the first Bush administration, and that was very important. So I think that's part of it. But I think the other part about it is and this gets back to the larger question about black nationalism, conservatism talked about, you know, there's a there's a lot of conservative dimensions to black nationalism, and 1 of them is its Sympathies. Not as a whole. Excuse me.
Corey Robin But oftentimes, it's it's, sympathy for the market, for the economy, As a place where you could develop black businesses. Remember, you know, Marcus Garvey, that was a big important part of his whole vision of black internationalism was about, you know, the blacks, you know, ship shipping line and so forth. And so so the market has been really important. And it was especially important, and this is is something that doesn't really get enough attention, I think, among, People who talk about black nationalism, but in the late 19 sixties and the early 19 seventies, there was a real, experiment with black capitalism, in among black nationalist movements as a way of, you know, trying to find progress for black people. It was local, And it was also national.
Corey Robin And it was also something that the Nixon administration was, at least, rhetorically very interested in. So they used to take out, you know, ads that, Black, that capitalism is is black power. Right? Capitalism is black power. And so Thomas, you know, really believes this in his bones.
Corey Robin Like, really believes in the marketplace, in capitalism, and so forth. And so I think For the for the for the people for whom, you know, he was a supreme court appointee, he really got The centerpiece of conservative ideology, about the market and about capitalism, and, Could in in inject or inflect it with this, kind of black, With this black nationalist inflection that was really part of the Republican party. Again, rhetorically, it was never anything they were all that serious about policy
n/a wise? So 1 more on on black nationalism. I mean, 1 other thing that makes understanding Thomas is a black nationalist. Complicated is that there are places, you talk about in the book, especially when it comes to political rights, Where he came in red is denying that black people have a coherent group analysts at all. So 1 place where you see this is his concurrence in Holder v Hall, which is a voting rights case, where he denies, quote, that the interests of African Americans are so distinct that they must be provided a separate body of representatives In the legislature to voice their unique point of view.
n/a So there's no there's no if if you take that Opinion. Seriously, there is nothing like a black interest, or at least he's arguing in that particular Right. Case. How does that square with The rest of his deal.
Corey Robin So the important this is 1 of his early voting rights case. It's like he said, it's called Holder v Hall. It's a very I mean, I should say this is the other thing about Thomas’s' opinions. They're extremely long. They're longer than anybody else's.
Corey Robin They go on, you know, sometimes for 100 of pages. And this was 1 of his early opinions where he sets this out. And it's about remember, when we're talking about voting rights, we're talking about really 2 aspects. 1 is, the app, access to to to the to the to the ballot. But the other is about, is the question about To what extent can African Americans have, sort of collective power expressed through the ballot?
Corey Robin And this is part of the the voting rights Jurisprudence. And so that leads to questions about voter dilution, about, you know, cutting up districts in such a way That black people can never be a majority and and things of that sort, which we're we're seeing a lot of today with with gerrymandering. And so Thomas, when he says that black people have no coherent interest, he's actually says and I think he uses the word political interest. It's about the political process. And I think there's 2 things that I that I think are important there for Thomas.
Corey Robin Thomas certainly believes that black people have coherent collective interests. He talks about that all the time. What he does not believe is this that Thomas’s any way possible for that interest to ever get expressed Or enacted in the political process. So in fact, in that in that, you you gave that quote earlier from that 1987 Monthly interview with him, this profile of him. He they said, you know, he says there, let's say you could carve up the political world, the political Fear and people's votes, by by groups.
Corey Robin White people, Latinos, Black people and so on. Asian I don't think he says Asian Americans, but, you know, you could imagine. He said, what would happen? Who is always going to come out on bottom? Black people.
Corey Robin Except maybe, he says, for American Indians. Right? Maybe, you know, They would come out worse. And so I think this is his notion he has that collectively through the political process, black people can never Attain any kind of real power. It's not that they don't have an interest.
Corey Robin It's that they can't get it exercised through the political process. The other part of that, He says is that if they were to get that, it would only be because of The majority's what that white people allowed them to. So he thinks there's a kind of dependence that's created there that's very, very dangerous, and that he has a lot of issues around his, you know, what he calls white paternalism. But he's very forthright that, you know, black people are a numerical minority, and they are a sub subjugated, despised people By white people. And you put those 2 things together, and there is no way that politically, they will ever find their advance through that process.
n/a So the book is actually divided into 3 sections. There's the first section on His racial views which we've kind of just blitzed through very impressively in a short amount of time. But the sec the second part of the book is It's headlined capitalism, and this is where you try to develop, Thomas’s political economy, which, you know, intersects, with race, obviously. But 1 of the the areas where you think that, you know, a distinct world view emerges, is in his interpretations and his understanding of the Commerce Clause of the Conservatism, where he's adopted, from your perspective, an even more radical view than those conservatives on the bench too about its appropriate scope. Can you talk about the commerce clause and why it's so important to Thomas?
Corey Robin Sure. I mean, the the commerce clause is important to everybody. This is you know, I teach constitutional law, and it's always, students get to this and I think, oh, god. This sounds so boring. But it turns out, you know, the entire American welfare state, The Civil Rights Act.
Corey Robin These are all yeah. The the women the Clarence Against Women Act, these are all based on the Commerce clause, which says that basically, congress has the right to regulate interstate commerce. You know, 6 words. Like everything else in this country, The fate of everybody depends on 6 words in this text that was written however many 100 of years ago. And from the very beginning, there was a debate about what that what that American.
Corey Robin And the position of the sort of nationalist position of chief just the first, you know, Not the first, but foremost important chief justice, John Marshall, was that we should understand commerce broadly. And there was this understanding of commerce in the 18th century, and I'm sorry this is gonna sound a little academic and wonky, but it's important for the Thomas stuff. That commerce is, the the commerce is a form of contact between different types of people. Right? Marshall says In in the decision, he says commerce is intercourse, which is a very common way that it was talked about in the 18th century.
Corey Robin Samuel Johnson, In his dictionary, he says Thomas’s the interchange of anything. So that it wasn't just about the exchange of goods, but it was about the exchange between Very prescient people who were very different from each other, and it was a way of bringing different people together. It was this kind of, you know, grand Decultural vision. And so the commerce clause was always thought by a certain kind of progressive nationalist in this country To be a way of unifying the country, of bringing the north and the south, not just together economically, but culturally, socially. And so that and and and and from that in the 20th century, you get this idea that, Because congress has the right to regulate the economy or commerce, which gets becomes to be the economy, It ultimately has the right to pass the Civil Rights Act.
Corey Robin Now how does that make any sense? Well, if you think about it and this is in The testimony around the Civil Rights Act, black people can't travel very easily From the South to the North. And Thomas’s, in fact, talks about this in his, testimony when he's when he's before the senate. He talks about how when his family had to travel, you know, like many black people in the south, They had to pack everything, all the food they were gonna need in the trunk because you couldn't be assured that there was a restaurant that you Good stop at. You would sleep in the car.
Corey Robin There was in fact a little green book that was a guide for black people, to where you could go. So that Segregation, in other words, inhibits commerce. Right? And, you know, There was all kinds of, testimony cases that, you know, so segregated restaurants, inhibited, commerce, Segregated schools and so on and so forth. So the commerce clause is really at the center of the New Deal and of The, of the Civil Rights Act.
Corey Robin Thomas hates it. Absolutely hates it. I mean, most conservatives have hated this this broad interpretation of commerce because they rightly understand the way it has been expanded. And there was a big case that some of you may remember, the Lopez decision in 1995, which was about guns in schools. Congress had passed a bill saying that you couldn't have gun you couldn't own, not own, have a gun on you, possess a gun Within a was within a 1000 feet of a school zone.
Corey Robin Why? Well, according to the, the commerce clause, if there's violence in schools, That means students aren't going to learn. If they're not going to learn, that's going to affect the economic health and well-being of the of the country. This is the way the jurisprudence goes. So conservatives, Rehnquist strikes it down, but Thomas does another 1 of his concurrences.
Corey Robin And he thinks Rehnquist and Sculia don't go far enough. And he comes up with the definition of commerce that basically would of according to many scholars, and I think they're right, would overturn chief justice John Marshall's Original precedent in Gibbons versus Ogden. So going back to a view of commerce that is older than the 8 well, I think that case was 1826. Now for many years, people thought, you know, Thomas is just insane. You know?
Corey Robin He's just crazy, and he's been hostage to these ultra right wingers, and Nobody paid attention to him. I think after the Dobbs decision that we just had in the spring, Where he again has 1 of his concurrences much shorter, but he tells you what he's go where he's going with this. And people aren't just dismissing it anymore. And likewise with this commerce clause decision, I mean, I would I I I don't like to do the Supreme Court, you know, where is it going, where is it heading thing because I I get those predictions wrong all the time. However, It's certainly not the case anymore that he's a lone voice on these types of questions.
Corey Robin And so you overturn that commerce clause. You know, you're overturning the Civil Rights Act. You're overturning the Wagner Act, Which is how we have labor unions in this country and and it's it's a lot of stuff that goes with it.
n/a And this is also the section in the book where you talk about some of the recent, you know, decisions and sort of debate over Political speech, money of speech, corporations and their influence on on politics and and, campaigns and elections. You you say here that, you know, as as with every other issue, race is in the background, for Thomas. But oddly enough, when it comes to his Opinions, consensus, on the campaign finance and commercial speech front, he doesn't inject race As readily as he does, in other issued areas. Do you have a sense of why that might be?
Corey Robin I don't. And this was a big I mean, I didn't have to dig very deep with most of those opinions. I mean, the race is pervades there. And again, the puzzle to me was why haven't people seen them? Mean, there's obviously, you know, things like affirmative action, but, you know, in these other cases, about, like, the commerce clause and so forth, it's it's everywhere.
Corey Robin With commercial speech well, with campaign finance, everybody knows what that's about. Commercial speech is this, just so people know, Is the kind of cutting edge of where the conservatives are really going. The first amendment protects freedom of speech foremost of the history of this country, that was perceived to be about primarily about political speech. Starting in about the 19 seventies, conservatives became interested in what they called commercial speech. 1st and foremost, advertising.
Corey Robin And, you know, foremost first amendment people thought advert you know, commercial advertising, that's not political speech. It has nothing to do with speech. Would we it doesn't deserve protection. Conservatives said that's not true. Again, Thomas is now at the forefront of expanding this, And this is something that is really important for people to pay attention to because as justice Kagan said in 1 of her dissents In the last couple of years, conservatives have weaponized the first amendment.
Corey Robin Right? Speech is part of the entire economy. If, You know, when you fire somebody, you engage in an act of speech. If that becomes a protected act of first amendment speech, You can't really regulate the hiring and firing of people, the way that we currently do. So This is very important, and Thomas is at the forefront.
Corey Robin It is a puzzle, however, as you say, even though he gives you hints and clues around the edges. Race doesn't primarily come into it, but I I won't get into the specifics, but there's a very influential speech he gave where I think he Sets out the connections between race and these ideas about, commercial speech and the first American. But it's you're right. It's definitely not in the jurisprudence.
n/a So as as we've already kind of talked about, I mean, he he thinks that politics is a dead end, or at least politics as we we know it is kind of dead end for Minorities, black people. You'd much rather have black people try to start their own businesses, try to compete in the free market, develop themselves that way, develop wealth that way. So, you know, I mean, in this particular section and it relates to the campaign finance stuff too. You you write that the, quote, the over Thrust of Thomas’s' opinions is to authorize men of means to dominate the political realm. So taking those 2 thoughts together, do you think that his Opinions in this area are aimed at kind of rationalizing the, you know, how little power minorities have in the political Or is he actively trying to force minorities out of political system because he thinks politics is bad for them and they're brought off doing something else?
n/a Does that question make sense? Like Yeah.
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, I think Both. I mean, but with the emphasis on the second. In other words, you know, he really and I I you can't stress this enough. Like, People say, oh, you know, how could Thomas he's contradictory.
Corey Robin He's against voting rights for black people. And for Thomas, you know, of you know, it's like, duh. Of course, he's against voting rights for black people. He doesn't believe he thinks it's a fool's errand, and he really wants Black people to stop participating in the political process. Like, he he really doesn't believe There is anything to be gained and certainly a lot to be lost from that.
Corey Robin He does believe, however, that the economy and the market is a place where black people can't, progress. He doesn't I don't think he really believes in progress, but can survive, can carve out niches for themselves. And there's an autobiographical dimension to this. His grand he was raised by his grandfather, Myers Anderson, who was a you know, we we would say today, You know, a black entrepreneur. He, started off by selling, fuel, I think ice actually, you know, blocks of ice and then Became a fuel delivery, company to black people who were not being served by the existing economy or the government.
Corey Robin And for Thomas, this is this kind of, I don't know what you'd call it. You know, this is the this sort of this story he comes back to constantly. And the story is, you know, my grandfather did this under the worst conditions of Jim Crow. The worst conditions of Jim Crow. And he created not just a successful business for himself and his family, but an extended network for the black community in Savannah, Georgia.
Corey Robin And that really is at the heart of his vision, and it it it's it's 2 things. 1, again, is these sort of niche areas. And I should say, you know, like, the Nixon administration used to do this all the time. They talk about black hairdressers and the importance of black hairdressers for the, you know, foremost independent businesswomen for the black economy. But so for Thomas, it's these niches that are not being served by The rest of the economy, but that a, you know, a kind of enterprising black person can provide for and and develop, And that they're communal spaces, and that these oh, and that and that it is and this is the critical thing for Thomas’s something we haven't really talked about that much.
Corey Robin It it's, the center of black men. Right? That, this is a that this is a space for black men to thrive, who you know, he has said Forthrightly, the salvation of the black community depends upon black men. This is a very patriarchal vision, But it's very much tied to his vision of black capitalism.
n/a Right. And so you developed this, in in the third and final section of the book, which is headline conservatism. I guess the central argument here, the central framing is that Thomas really sees 2 constitutions. There's a black constitution and there's a white constitution. Both of them have distinct roles, as you say, in sort of shaping Black men in particular.
n/a There's a quote here. So the the purpose of Thomas’s black constitution, you're right. It's to support the black patriarch where he exists. The purpose of Thomas’s' white constitution is to create a patriarch where he does not exist. You could talk about what you what you mean by that and what these 2 constitutions actually mean and say.
Corey Robin So Thomas, you know, is a self Described originalist. You've probably heard that term originalism. Most white conservative originalists It's really believed that, you know, the constitution is what the men in 17/87 wrote, and that that's the constitution. What distinguishes Thomas's originalism is that he accepts a lot of the historiography of liberals that says The constitution was fundamentally transformed through the experience of emancipation and reconstruction and civil war. That Thomas’s a second constitution, a understanding that is is transforms, not just through the 13th, 14th, and 15th American and the incorporation of black people.
Corey Robin It transforms the entire American state, and makes the national state the center and the foundation for the protection of rights Everywhere and that this is a new transformation. And Thomas accepts that, but with a twist. So For liberals, this means, the 13th, 14th American means the federal government can protect individuals against State discrimination. It can protect freedom of speech. It could, you know, transform the economy and all of these other kinds of things.
Corey Robin For Thomas, the the centerpiece of that black constitution, the right that was nationalized Through the 14th American. The fundamental right of citizens that was nationalized through the 14th amendment Is the right to bear arms. And if you read his opinion on this? It is both chilling and fascinating because at the center of the right to bear arms is the black patriarch. It's the black man protecting his family against the Klan, against white terrorism with a gun.
Corey Robin Right. And that is the figure of salvation. And and so for Thomas, the black constitution Perspectives the black man, the black patriarch where he where he is, wherever he may be found. That strong figure Like his grandfather, this impressive sort of will to power who defies everybody and protects his family and advances the interest of Community. But Thomas believes the problem of 20th century liberalism is that it corroded that figure.
Corey Robin It destroyed that figure by giving rights, welfare rights, Criminal justice rights, sexual liberties, and sexual freedom. And because of what is called the rights revolution, the new deal, the great society, the sexual revolution, Black men the position of black men in the black community has been corroded. And this is the you know, I I don't like to get into psychobiography too much. I I feel like people love to do that with Thomas, and I I don't like it. But it's hard to ignore the the autobiographical elements there because his father, not his grandfather, his father left him.
Corey Robin He never saw he hardly ever saw his father. And his father is the kind of is the figure he's talking about there. Had left his family, had multiple lovers, goes to the north, you know, enjoys the freedom of movement that's suddenly available to black people After the after the war and so on. So that absent black patriarch Is what has destroyed the black community. How do we get that black patriarch back?
Corey Robin Why how did he exist in the first place. And this, I think, is sort of ground 0 of the truly, truly scary part of Thomas's vision because it well, anyway, I think it's obvious why it's so scary. How did we get that black patriarchal figure? We got him under Jim Crow and under slavery. In other words, it was the most nightmarish dystopian moments of American history That produced this kind of figure of salvation who did this achievement Of protecting the black community and enabling it to survive against all the odds.
Corey Robin And now that he is gone, The only way to recreate him is by creating the kind of conditions of punishment And difficulty and constraint that and and sometimes he'll say this, that kinda recreate the virtues of black masculinity under Jim Crow. And hence, you get these terrifying opinions about prisons And about police where it's almost as if he's saying the the more punitive and the more racist, the better. Because the American experience, the American story has taught us That those are the conditions in which these heroic figures of redemption, Like, my grandfather, I'm speaking in Thomas's voice, right, came about. And that we, as a the black community, will never get back on its feet until, we restore those figures. And that that's really the prog the project of American constitutionalism and American originalism, is to restore the kind of conditions that created those figures.
n/a So the way you put it in the book is, quote, the white constitution makes black freedom possible through the instruments of policing, punishment, and prison. The help of these instruments, black people, particularly black men, are restored to a world of harsh consequences from which they can learn the virtues of responsibility. And it is a very jarring argument. But when I read it, I sort of recognized something a little bit familiar in it. In that there seems to be something similar in in the notion in in mainstream respectability politics of being twice as good.
n/a Yeah. Right? So, you ought to be pushed by racism into being better than anybody else. You ought to be pushed by these conditions to strive. But the difference there though is that I I think in mainstream respectability politics, being twice as good is a burden that's gonna be shoved off with time.
n/a When society improves to a certain point, you won't have to have that
Corey Robin Yeah.
n/a That added sense of responsibility. With Thomas, I think what you're saying is that He thinks that being twice as good, is an aspiration that's just sort of worth keeping around for its own sake. Like, we should always wanna be twice as good Yeah. Forever and ever. Amen.
Corey Robin Yeah.
n/a Does that seem like the right way to think about it?
Corey Robin Absolutely. I mean, I there's 2 aspects to this. 1 is a kind of pessimism saying that you're always gonna have to be twice as Good. It's just that's the way it's always going to be and, you know, you could hope it's till the cows come home, but be clear, that's not gonna change. But there's a there's an extra, as always with Thomas’s, there's a little bit extra, which is that, you know and Where this come from, you could say it comes from this Catholicism.
Corey Robin There's all kinds of things, but there's this real there's a real belief that adversity breeds strength. It creates for strength that when things become too easy, people get complacent. They get Lazy. And, I mean, you know, I should say it's like this was I mean, I I was recently kinda going through some of this stuff again. You know, in the seventies, this was a kind of Bipartisan belief was that, you know, America was suffering from too many rights.
Corey Robin And the problem with that wasn't that it was creating anarchy or disorder. It was that it was creating soft softness. Right? When when things you know, entitlements and all that kind of stuff that you, you know, you you you gotta make things harder for people a little I mean, that that's at the heart of welfare reform, which under Bill Clinton. YouTube gotta make things harder for people in order to elicit the kind of virtues that we prize.
Corey Robin Courage, grit. I mean, grit. You know, that word grit is, you know, when when my kid was in elementary everybody was talking about grit. They don't talk about that anymore. But, you know, persistence, all of these virtues, And that when the conditions of society are such that things are too easy, You know, you get slackers.
Corey Robin So, you know, again, Thomas takes this, you know, really far, but I think he speaks, you know, for a kind of for more than himself when he says that kind of stuff.
n/a So we should talk at least a little bit here about, Thomas on abortion. You know, obviously, this came out well before the Dobbs decision and and his concurrence. You you do suggest in the book when you Talk about a portion that it seems to be a place where he is a little bit more in line with the rest of the conservative justices. At the same time though, like, if you read His concurrence in Box v, Planned Parenthood, maybe in other places too. He does make these references to eugenics and Yeah.
n/a To, you know, racial, you know, racial eugenics understanding discrimination when when thinking through abortion. Can you give us a broad sense about how he thinks about, You know, abortion and and also, you know, the extent to which the the Dobbs concurrence from just a a little while back is significant.
Corey Robin Yeah. So, you know, if there were a part of the book I'd revise, it would be about abortion. I didn't when I wrote the book, it was, you know, it was published in 2019. Thomas's opinions about abortion seem mostly pretty boilerplate. There was a little bit of misogyny in his Citations.
Corey Robin So for instance, he referenced the dissenting opinion in Roe v Wade, which was actually written by a Democratic appointee, Which basically acted like, you know, women were getting abortions because they were irresponsible, and wanted to have sex without consequences. So there was kinda misogyny in his decisions, but it there was nothing there. And then after the book came out, he wrote, as you said, this, opinion 2 years ago where he sets out, a vision of birth control and abortion as A project of white eugenics, ethnic sort of purification. Now There's a long history of that argument about Margaret Sanger and her racism. You know, it's it's not a completely, at a left field sort of a thing.
Corey Robin And and Thomas, As is his won't in his decision, he quotes the NAACP in Harlem in 1968 saying that birth control clinics are a way of controlling the black community and the black population and and all the rest of it. But he he gives a real racial inflection to what abortion is about. And, again, you know, he writes this decision. It's it's a solo a solo not decision, an opinion, a solo opinion. Nobody pays that much.
Corey Robin Well, I guess people take some attention. But what's truly shocking is that in the Dobbs decision, which Alito wrote, the recent There's a footnote, and there he talks Alito talks about, the conservatism between abortion, birth control, And eugenics. So it as always with these things, you know, Thomas is planting these seeds That, then get picked up by lower court justices and now Alito. And so, It's what role that's going to play, you know, I don't know, but it's telling that it's it's Popping up in more than, 1 place.
n/a So I think 1 more question before we'll take turn it over to the, the audience. You know, unfortunately, we can't tell people to go to the polls in November and vote out Clarence Thomas, in the Supreme Court. So what do you what do you think is is the kind of practical Upshot to all of this. 1 thing that I thought about reading this book, obviously, you know, again, it came out a couple years ago, is that we saw in 2020 At the polls, a bit of erosion, amongst, some minority groups, especially Hispanics, and just support from the Democratic party. Republicans have invested very heavily into building outreach to the black community.
n/a It hasn't paid off quite yet, but they're they're making real efforts. And, you know, 1 of the things this book I think really illustrates is that there are a lot of different paths to the political right, even if you're a minority. And you can't really expect a kind of demographic essentialism, to draw people to liberal politics and to the politics of racial justice. So I don't know. Do do you think that the book offers practical political lessons in in that sense about how we should think about Race and and, conventional politics now.
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, you know, Trump in a in a way, You know, scrambled a lot of different things, but people forget, you know, under George w Bush, there was I think Latinos were voting by 2,000 and Foremost Bush, you know, 38% or something like that. It was a pretty high number, and that was a big project of Bush's compassionate conservatism know, it was a big thing. You know, Bush spoke Spanish. I mean, he probably spoke 10 words, but, you know, it was a big selling point in building, a kind of multicultural conservatism.
Corey Robin And then it's kinda got shut down starting with Romney in 2012 and then obviously with with Trump. But in 2020, we saw the beginnings of a revival around it. And I I do think That this is something that liberals and democrats really need to grapple with, is is just this notion that, you know, as the Country becomes more multicultural and more immigrants and more multiracial that somehow it means automatically people Heading toward the path to liberalism. And I think that's just, you know, factually wrong. But I think the other part of this book is that there's a there's a kind of fatalism about race and pessimism that we've talked about that, you know, my editor wouldn't let me put this in, but I really wanted to put it in.
Corey Robin You know, I'll just never forget that Hillary Clinton speech in Nevada in 2016 during the primaries, you know, where she said, If we, you know, break up the banks, is that gonna end racism? If we do x and it was an argument against Sanders', you know, sort of class first politics. But if you listened to it carefully and, like, watched it, I mean, it was really just saying, like, you know, we're never gonna end racism. And anybody who tells you otherwise is, you know, is foolish. And so I do think, you know, Lonnie Guinier had this great argument about how African Americans are often the the canary in the coal mine.
Corey Robin What happens to African Americans first then happens to other people, you know, afterwards. And I I think the sort of racism talk Of Thomas is is something that's worth paying attention to because that that sense of the irreducibility, The the unchangeability, the in the persistence, and that politics can't do anything about it. I don't think it's just true of Clarence Thomas, and I I think that's something to to reckon with.
n/a Alright. I think this is the point where all of you will get a chance to ask some prescient, and somebody will be Why doesn't he practice what he preaches in terms of interracial relationships?
Corey Robin This is a good question. It comes up a lot. The truth is I don't really know I mean, Ultimately, I don't know the answer to that question. I will say that, the all the evidence that we have is that he believed he believed in about interracial romance until the moment that he didn't. And that's really the Best.
Corey Robin I mean, I try to make sense of him to the best that I can, and there are a lot of contradictions that I think I do make sense of. And then there's just, You know, I will say 1 thing though is that, you know well, no. I won't. I'll stop there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 I had the pleasure to listen to Obama today. They unveiled his, photo the portraits. I'm wondering the impact of the Obama presidency and how that, you know, intersected with his Yeah. His thinking.
Corey Robin I'm really glad you asked that question because it, again, gets to 1 of these really difficult areas of Thomas's belief system. In his autobiography, which Thomas’s is a a memoir, My Grandfather's Son, He says that, you know, his first real encounter with the color line he was born in pinpoint, and then when he's 5 or 6, he moves to Savannah. Was in Savannah. In pinpoint, it was all black community. And he moves to Savannah.
Corey Robin And his first encounter, he says, is not from white people. It's from other black people who are lighter skinned than he is. Thomas is dark skinned, and he was called ABC, America's blackest child. He was made fun of for the, You know, his hair was, and, it it was an ongoing feed, the kind of Way that he was looked down upon. And for Thomas, as as, you know and this is again a a kind of a difficult discourse within the black community, Colorism.
Corey Robin Thomas associated light skinned black people with Wealthier, more professional, and then ultimately with liberals. So remember Drew Days, who was, Bill Clinton's Solicitor general or going back even further, Patricia Harris, who was Jimmy Carter's secretary, what would what would be now HUD, HEW, Health, Education, and welfare. These black liberal figures, big, you know, icons in the black community, Very light skinned. And Thomas, was not shy about making that connection. This is a a long way of saying, so what did Barack Obama represent to him?
Corey Robin I think it was that kind of Lighter skinned, black man we call it PNA, a professional managerial class, of which Thomas is, of course, A part of himself. But I I think that's the way he sees the the Obama administration. These are the With the kind of liberal black people who looked down upon him in the schoolyard, And whom he has been fighting with ever since.
Speaker 3 Hey. Question right here.
Corey Robin Where?
Speaker 3 Right here. Are there any issues in which he crosses over and votes with the liberal justices? And if So how how does that 1 issue or issues fit into his kind of overarching philosophy on race and politics and the rest?
Corey Robin Yeah. I mean, on certain criminal justice issues, believe, interestingly enough, this gets into some very technical stuff, in criminal justice jurisprudence, but on issues like sentencing, where, You know, more years were added beyond by the judge or more discretion was given to sentencing. He will often side with liberal justices. Why he does that is complicated, and I talk about it in the book. I don't know How interesting it is, to be honest with you.
Corey Robin But there's, like, another decision where he actually was at the the sole dissenter. It was a cross burning, case, and O'Connor wrote the decision. It was an 8 to 1 decision. It was in the early aughts, where she says that, you know, and every other justice, including all the liberals agree, that Cross burning sometimes is a form of, freedom of speech. It's a form of speech.
Corey Robin It's expressive. It's expressive. And Thomas writes, you know, of of blistering prescient that I think now would be pretty much accepted by anybody who's a liberal For a democrat that in this country, cross burning is always is everywhere and always 1 thing and 1 thing only. It's a mode of it's a mode of Racial terrorism and intimidation. There's it's not a form of speech.
Corey Robin So, You know, there are certain things, but I wouldn't I think what's interesting about Thomas is not when he crosses over to the other side. It's when he comes up with these conservative arguments, but the route he takes there. That's what's that's what's really interesting about him.
Speaker 2 Hi. Thank you so, so much for navigating all these issues. I'm listening and, I just came back from, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship In Savannah. Wow. So it's fascinating to hear from them how they perceive their patron saint of democracy and, liberty.
Speaker 2 Okay. So I see a lot of people, like, shocked or, like, oh, like, you know, their disdain for him. But, like, if you listen and you look Through his racial lens of racial terror, and you pan it out, everything that he does then makes sense. If you occupy that lens of racial terror, preservation, sustainability of the black man, it makes Perfect sense. So in this equation, ending racism would prevent someone like Clarence or the Clarence of the future From occupying such a high position in our government or just, you know, writ large, any anywhere in a position of power.
Speaker 2 It's racism. That's that's the variable in this equation. That's it. All of our disdain means nothing. So my question would be, Is he grooming?
Speaker 2 Is he is he inspiring a new generation? Do you know anything about because because again, like, It's power. Right? That's that's that's why he he'll sit there and say, you know what? I was made fun of because I'm so dark skinned.
Speaker 2 I'm gonna marry this white woman. Because, again, it's racial terror. He wants power. So is he also inspiring a new generation of of of black men? Do you know what what that relationship Is to others that may feel like, yeah.
Speaker 2 You know? Because that that's really what it is. It's it's power and it's ending racism that is so convoluted That we get a Clarence Thomas. So are we gonna get another Clarence in the future?
Corey Robin I mean, the history of black conserved I don't know if we're get another Clarence Thomas in the future, but, you know, it there's it's there's a long history of black conservatism in this country, and he is 1 chapter in that history. He is certainly I mean, I don't know how whether recently, but, you know, he certainly spent quite a bit of time when he was on the court, Meeting maybe you made a big point. He was the only justice who did. I think Sotomayor now does this as well. Meeting with, You you know, the local youth and and really I mean, there's some very interesting and poignant moments in the reporting on this kind of stuff.
Corey Robin And also certainly grooming, clerks, you know, both black and white. So he certainly I mean, in fact, if anything, I mean, this was 1 of the things That, early on, it's so significant is that, you know, he had the highest number of clerks pointed either to the judiciary by Trump or or in the the Trump administration. So he certainly has Created a network. Whether or not it's, you know, about black men and so forth, that I couldn't, speak to, really. But he certainly is aware of his legacy and trying to extend it.
Corey Robin Sir?
Speaker 4 I I read your book. Oh, thank you. And There are a number of things that disappointed me. 1 was the prescient I came to your book with, you didn't really respond answer in the book. But 1 was, you don't deal with the issue of social class.
Speaker 4 You never discussed why he chose the Holy Cross. I I mean, there were better Catholic colleges. There's Notre Dame and, you know, there's others. Did did he go the other way? Clinton went to Georgetown because he thought he could get the grades there to get into Yale.
Speaker 4 The second thing was, where where, Thomas’s, talked about The importance of black people working together and and and, you know, overcoming, racism. Many African American conservatives talk about the need to create internal support mechanisms among African American communities. But if do Thomas’s really believe that? And and and and, you know, he was old enough. He he he knew of Malcolm.
Speaker 4 He knew of Of Elijah Muhammad. He knew of Marcus Garvey. You know, they emphasized commercial, you know, entrepreneurship and all that. If he really believed that, his his jurisprudence would be very different. And and and you you didn't really Just discuss that.
Speaker 4 You know, there were certain internal contradictions about Terrence Terrence Thomas’s, but I thought the word enigma, you know, would really Go after. But but you you didn't really get into that, and I I was frustrated.
Corey Robin I'm sorry Sorry about that. I I I think I disagree with you on a couple of things. So, the issue of class is, I mean, he's there in the book quite a bit, in in a in in a bunch of different respects. So we talked a bit about colorism and how It frames his whole sort of approach to class differences within the black community. And then I also talked about it quite a bit in this, which we didn't talk about here, but in his discussion about how he conceives of racial harms as stigmas.
Corey Robin And And it's very much a product of the the class he now occupies. It's something that people in the professional classes are very concerned with. So I think class is pervasive, and it's it's in the book. But in terms of the second point about his jurisprudence would be different If he took seriously those ideas, I'm not I'm not sure how. As I said, what he takes from Garvey and from Malcolm X, I mean, Garvey says, don't take the don't go by the ballot.
Corey Robin I can't remember. It was just it's in the Black prescient should not depend on the ballot or resort to the government for protection. The government will be in the hands of the majority of the people who are prejudiced against him. It's exactly what Clarence Thomas believes. That's why black people should not put faith in the government or in the ballot and instead should put faith In kind of entrepreneurialism and business creation.
Corey Robin And all of his jurisprudence Fits with that. It doesn't contradict that. So I I actually do think that's at the center of of the vision. I mean, there's all kinds of
n/a problems with
Corey Robin But I don't think that part is inconsistent.
Speaker 5 Thank you. From your talk here and, you know, from, I guess, even a cursory of your view of Thomas’s' opinions, you can tell that He believes that there are a lot of things that have been considered rights that shouldn't be considered rights. But I gotta believe that there are at least Like a handful that he's like, okay. No. These are these are sacrosanct.
Speaker 5 I'm assuming, you know, interracial marriage. Right? Like, that's 1. He's he's probably big on loving. But aside from that, you know, what does this man look at and say, no.
Speaker 5 These we can keep.
Corey Robin These are both the
Speaker 5 These we can keep for, you know, everybody in America.
Corey Robin So the right to bear arms is is a is a is a no. It's it's a really important 1. Thomas is, you know, on when it comes to freedom of speech, He's you know, there's a kind of libertarian wing of conservatism church prudence, and he's, pretty solid on freedom of speech, Particularly when it involves things like campaign finance and commercial speech, but even other, freedom of religion, free exercise of religion. So most of the first amendment freedoms, you know, when it comes to freedom of assembly, I suspect not, but I I I hesitate because I don't really remember any distinctive
Speaker 4 opinions from
Corey Robin him on that. But those rights, on search and seizure, on like I said, on certain criminal justice things, again, there's a there's a weird libertarian streak among some conservatives about that. So I think those, he's, pretty that are important. You know, the the interracial marriage and the loving thing is an interesting 1. I'm glad you brought it up because in his Abortion decision, you know, he says I mean, not his decision.
Corey Robin His concurrence, he says, you know, All of you know, abortion, birth control. So the The 1965 decision on birth control, gay marriage, and he leaves out interracial marriage, and people have thought, you know, this is some kind of inconsistency. I I really don't know where he's gonna go with that question, but the only thing I would say is Well, I I don't wanna get it gets very technical. But it is striking that he left that that off the chopping block. He didn't mention it.
Corey Robin So
Speaker 6 So thank you. Kind of a long winded prescient, but, in in your other book, me? Mind, you argue really compellingly that, you know, the essence of conservatism is the defense of hierarchy. So, you know, for me, it's always In the question of how someone from a subjugated class like Clarence Thomas could become an arch conservatism. Kinda always, you know, assumed, oh, Cynicism, self interest, whatever.
Speaker 6 But now you're, you know, you're I think you weave a more compelling case. It's something that he really believes it. And there's a more, you know, Deeper world view that, you know, this world of hierarchy, you know, cultivates this hardness that he's obsessed with. And Could you maybe speak more about that? The connection between the session with hardness and conservatism just in general, like, you know, if conservatism's defensive hierarchy, you know, how does that square with Thomas's worldview?
Corey Robin Yeah. So conservatism wrote this book, The Reactionary Mind, and it makes argument that you just said that conservatism is always about the defense of hierarchy. But there's a second part of that argument, which is how to make Hierarchy compelling in a society that is, democratic. Right. Where where the masses are now a presence.
Corey Robin And so this has always been the project of conservatism is how to reconcile It's very hierarchical vision in which there are an x a few excellent men who are entitled to govern and rule Others, women, workers, black people. How to reconcile that vision with the fact that You have to make that philosophy broadly appealing. And so conservatism has always wrestled with this and has come up with a variety of ways that I Discussing that book. But I think Thomas is very consistent with that because he finds a place for black men in the conservative movement. And that's consistent with conservative conservatism that finds a place to say for, A father.
Corey Robin Right? A father, you know, the father of a family who may not be the father may not be particularly rich. Right. He might be economically quite poor. He might be socially marginalized.
Corey Robin But, boy, in that home, He's a little despot. Right? He's a little he's a little king. Right? And so I think that idea, you know, it fits with conservatism, with Thomas’s vision, right, of these black male patriarchs Who are not, in terms of the society as a whole, particularly revered, figures of high status, but within their communities Are, and I think so I think that's that would be the the connection between the 2.
Corey Robin And it is, as you say, it's a very sincere vision. This is not This is not a it's it's it's it's sincere. Yeah.
Speaker 2 We have time for 1 final question.
Speaker 7 Thank you. Thank you both for a really wonderful understanding evening. Is he at peace with himself? I mean, he's no. I mean, he just He seems at once so angry and, I mean, for all these claims he makes about his intellectual rigor and the originalism, I mean, people I've been reading very deeply about Bruin, for example.
Speaker 7 I mean, serious historians and legal people think it's quite literally the worst, most intellectually bankrupt Supreme Court decision in the history of Supreme Court decisions. I mean, even this Which decision? Bruin, the New York, the gun law, the most recent gun law. And even, for example, the idea frankly, the the citation you made about, cross burning, it was itself understood as terror. That's what possession of a gun was understanding as from, like, the very earliest English common law.
Speaker 7 I mean, for a person who claims and wants to be so intellectual, he seems So motivated by emotion and anger for a person who keeps he's simultaneously so engaged in a historical view. I mean, he can't update a reality to, like, Barack Obama becoming president. I mean, how do you make sense? Does he try to make sense? Does he think he makes sense?
Speaker 7 Does he think he's an intellectual? I mean, I I don't know. I He's just I don't know how you I'm having difficulty with all these contradictions. And if if there's any through line, He can see or you can see through it. My apologies on the incoherence of that.
Corey Robin No. No. No. No. I understand the I mean, I think yeah.
Corey Robin I I think we have, And it's a very recent idea about supreme court justices. The bulk of them have been recently, you know, all from Harvard and Yale, Harvard or Yale Law School. The bulk of them have been many of them have been professors. Many of them have been, you know, long standing jurists. For most of the Supreme Court's history, that was actually not the case.
Corey Robin Hugo Black, 1 of the revered figures of the, you know, the Warren Court, Was a senator from in fact, a former Klan member, but was a senator from Alabama. He had to you know, was no Earl Warren was a governor from California. And the reason I bring that up is for most of the Supreme Court's history, Supreme Court justices were political figures. They weren't intellectuals. They weren't academics.
Corey Robin They weren't professors. And I think Thomas is part of that tradition of the Supreme Court as political actors Speaking a particular kind of language that has certain kind of constraints and forms that you have to honor and observe. Right? It's not like Tom DeLay. I feel like Tom DeLay now seems like an intellectual compared to what's going on today.
Corey Robin But but, you know, whatever. So, So they're not it's not a free for all, but it's also not an academic seminar, you know, these opinions. And so I guess That would be the way I would I don't know exactly what's in Thomas’s head about whether he's an intellectual or not, whether he's at peace with himself. I mean, these are Decisions that are often blistering. But that's true, you know, that was true of Antonin Scalia.
Corey Robin I mean, Scalia was notorious. So, I I I I think behind the question is the notion that he's not, is like, you know, he's not, yeah, as you said, not an intellectual. And I guess I would challenged the premise of the question, which is throughout American history, most Supreme Court justices were not intellectuals. Oh, well, if if that's the issue there, I think that's true. Yeah.
Corey Robin I mean, I think you're definitely right. But I also think he's talked about original I mean, if, you know, the last part of the book is a way that he talks about originalism In a way Thomas’s extremely personal, and I don't think I don't think he sees it as I mean, Scalia was the big 1 who talked about the impersonality of original I mean, Thomas doesn't do that that much. So I don't know if that's as much of an inconsistency there. But but, yes, I agree that, The the the personal, political, ideological elements are front and center, and so it's not a kind of academic, You know, law professors' idea of the law, but all I would say is is that most supreme court opinions oh, I mean, Read the Brown decision. Right?
Corey Robin It's it's from an academic law point of view, it's it's not exactly up there, you know, at the levels of reasoning. It was a political statement, and, I don't see that as a kind of a market, frankly, as a mark I mean, I think all of these things are quite political.
Speaker 2 So Thank you both so much, and thank you all for coming.