Are you kidding me?! Biden is a politician. I suspect he's very rarely honest about his rationale for a decision. And don't get me wrong, this is fine. I'm not naive enough to think that politicians can speak candidly at all times about what's happening behind the scenes. As Johnson didn't.

My issue is that Biden somehow manages to keep identity out of the picture entirely, except for when it serves him. And when it does, it never serves the person he's tokenising.

If your plan is to forever use “well, at least he/she is better than Trump,” as the standard, prepare for a lot of rationalising in your future.😅

And yes, obviously the Trumpers would have reacted differently. I mean, they would have found fault if he'd re-animated Scalia and nominated him again. Their raison d'être is complaining about what Biden does, whatever it is.

The point is, if Biden had led with, just for example, Jackson's unique history as a public defender, the Trumpers would actually have had to think of reasons why this made her unfit for the job. Biden effectively saying, "I ruled out 93% of the population before I even started looking at candidates," gives them every excuse they need to justify dismissing her as a "diversity hire."