Conservative senators were always going to attack a democratic nominee. In the same way that democratic nominees were going to attack a conservative pick. That’s how the political game is played. So this may be a political issue or it may be a race issue - it may be both.

Given how writers like your good self perpetually centre race as the only issue to discuss, the political pressure was on Joe Biden to appoint a Black Woman. Hand-picked. Pre-selected from a limited pool of candidates. Race always was central to this discussion - because both racists and anti-racists have made it impossible to talk about anything else. It’s boring. It’s repetitive. Its reductionist and it’s divisive. Makes a lot of money for middle class writers and people who’ve accidentally fallen into ‘think-tanks’ or lucrative ‘expert’ roles though.