Administration spokespeople have defended Childs’ record and pledged to ensure that she makes it onto the DC Circuit Court if she doesn’t end up as the president’s SCOTUS nominee. It’s possible that Biden is only pretending to consider her for the Supreme Court seat as a sop to her primary backer, South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn—the third-ranking Democrat in the House and the man who arguably did more than anyone else to block Sen. Bernie Sanders from winning the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Regardless of whether this is true, anyone who believes that “Joe from Scranton” is a genuine friend to working-class people should be surprised that he wants to appoint someone like Childs even to the DC District Court. And the administration’s defense of the choice is extremely revealing. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates referred to her “extraordinary credentials” and emphasized that she was “one of the first Black women to serve as a partner at a major South Carolina law firm.”

Got that? She might have been a partner at a union-busting law firm, but she was one of the first Black women to do so! Who cares if she opposed workers’ efforts to achieve a better life? Just focus on her “extraordinary credentials.”