Biden failed to nominate a Latina to Cabinet
esit wasn’t a surprise that President Joe Biden nominated so many women and people of color to his Cabinet, surpassing that of President Barack Obama.
Biden promised as much, though failed to nominate a Latina, a huge disappointment he’ll have to rectify somehow.
In his diverse set of nominations and appointments, Biden supporters have seen justice and opportunity made real, as the nation reckons with its racist past and deals with the white supremacists Donald Trump emboldened.
Finally, a fuller representation of the nation’s diversity will take seats in rooms where decisions are made.
Throughout U.S. history, those rooms have been filled with white men, their interests and their perspectives. Policy was carried out largely to their advantage, and in Trump’s administration, to right-wing extremism.
Minority voters and other liberals didn’t imagine Biden’s nominees would sail through this Senate, not one so evenly divided and divisive, not one in which Democrats have been reluctant to exert power.
It has become clear, however, that objections to some of Biden’s Cabinet nominees have been rationalized and whitewashed as everything other than what they are: racist and petty.
While several of Biden’s picks have encountered relatively smooth passage, others have been more forcefully questioned on their qualifications and experience. Some senators have objected to a nominee’s “tone” and tweets.
It’s as if they didn’t read Amy Coney Barrett’s skimpy résumé; or recall Brett Kavanaugh’s nasty temperament; or every abrasive tweet by Trump — his incessant lying, blatant racism and disparaging references to women, people of color, the disabled, the military. The list goes on.
Biden’s nominees are pragmatic political operatives. None are hardly radical.
Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, may not get Senate approval because of her “mean tweets” that criticized Republican Sen. Susan Collins as “the worst.”
That’s inaccurate, of course. In the Senate, there’s a category for worst.
Tanden compared Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell to Lord Voldemort. I get her point, but it was hardly mean. She also said “vampires have more heart than (U.S. Sen. Ted) Cruz,” the most hated man in Washington.
That’s also inaccurate. Last week, as Texas was in the middle of a power catastrophe, Cruz went to Cancún. People froze to death, and he left his dog behind.
Cruz is actually heartless. Here’s the truth: Republican senators have been most opposed to Biden Cabinet nominees who are people of color.
They’ve slowed the process for Tanden, who’d be the first Indian American in the post; U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland for interior secretary, who’d become the first Native American on a U.S. Cabinet; and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, nominated for secretary of health and human services.
He’s not a physician, Republican senators said while experiencing political amnesia. Trump’s HHS secretary didn’t have a medical degree either and it isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for the job.
Biden’s white nominees had a far easier time being confirmed. The double-standard was obvious.
So was the pettiness.
One critic said a rejection of a Biden nominee would serve as “a morale booster” for Republicans still stinging from 2020 loses; and that holding up the process amounted to “calling the waahhhmbulance … because their feelings are hurt.”
The Senate remains as intransigent as the National Football League.
It’s hard to call out what senators are doing as racist. Their language has been coded. Society has made the standard for such a charge incredibly high.
It’s why police departments and the military can’t cull their own herds of racists, and why universities and other institutions get twisted into all forms of discomfort before they call it what it is.
Janet Murguía, president of Unidosus, formerly the National Council of La Raza, couldn’t quite make the charge and opted for polite condemnation.
“We are concerned with what seems like foot-dragging and an effort to slow down the confirmation process of eminently qualified individuals and the fact that these nominees are women, people of color, sons or daughters of immigrants and there seems to be a pattern that is very troubling,” she told the Washington Post.
Agreed. Bigly.