Via New Yorker:
On Friday evening, CNN, the New York Times, and other media outlets reported that Donald Trump had told associates that he has chosen Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a prominent social conservative, to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Although Trump’s choice of Barrett—whom he appointed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in 2017—wasn’t unexpected, it’s sure to escalate the bitter political conflict surrounding the Republican effort to rush a nomination through the U.S. Senate less than forty days before the election.
Right now, it looks like Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has the votes to do that. The brazen and unapologetic nature of this G.O.P. power play is fanning perfectly justified outrage, and the selection of Barrett—who has ruled in favor of restrictions on abortion and who once served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia—as a replacement for a liberal icon will further inflame passions. The nominee is expected to appear alongside Trump at the White House on Saturday afternoon. Some Democratic senators have openly considered boycotting the confirmation hearings, which would be unprecedented, at least in the modern era.