The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

by Corey Robin

The Enigma of Clarence Thomas is a groundbreaking revisionist take on the Supreme Court justice everyone knows about but no one knows.


“One of the marvels of Robin’s razor-sharp book is how carefully he marshals his evidence.... It isn’t every day that reading about ideas can be both so gratifying and unsettling.” – The New York Times


Most people can tell you two things about Clarence Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, and he almost never speaks from the bench. Here are some things they don’t Thomas is a black nationalist. In college he memorized the speeches of Malcolm X. He believes white people are incurably racist.

In the first examination of its kind, Corey Robin– one of the foremost analysts of the right ( The Reactionary Mind ) – delves deeply into both Thomas’s biography and his jurisprudence, masterfully reading his Supreme Court opinions against the backdrop of his autobiographical and political writings and speeches. The hidden source of Thomas’s conservative views, Robin shows, is a profound skepticism that racism can be overcome. Thomas is convinced that any government action on behalf of African-Americans will be tainted by racism; the most African-Americans can hope for is that white people will get out of their way.

There’s a reason, Robin concludes, why liberals often complain that Thomas doesn’t speak but seldom pay attention when he does. Were they to listen, they’d hear a racial pessimism that often sounds similar to their own. Cutting across the ideological spectrum, this unacknowledged consensus about the impossibility of progress is key to understanding today’s political stalemate.

Genres: Politics, Biography, Law, History, Nonfiction, Race, Audiobook

320 pages, Hardcover

Published September 24, 2019

About the author

Corey Robin is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College.

Reviews

[Mehrsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked Robin’s other books and I love that he takes Thomas seriously. I thought the analysis of his views of the white and black constitution were fascinating. However, the thesis of the book is that Thomas is a Black Nationalist. He asserts this with a lot of knowledge of Thomas, but unfortunately no knowledge of Black Nationalism. To say that Thomas liked Malcolm X isn’t going to cut it. He was a liberal in college. All Robin's evidence (i.e. Thomas's opinions and talks) just show that he’s a right wing conservative who acknowledges racism—that does make him different that most conservatives, but it does not make him a black nationalist. I thought the personal details about Thomas’s life were fascinating, but I was a bit uncomfortable with the arm chair psychoanalysis. I do think Thomas is angry and he has felt besieged by the left. He has a patriarchal and punitive world view and he believes in the second Amendment. He also happens to be black, but he is not a black nationalist. Black nationalism was anti-colonial and anti-capitalist. Black nationalism had a pretty sophisticated intellectual tradition that goes back to Marcus Garvey and spans the globe. Black nationalism has a lot of literature that can be read. It does not appear that Robin has made himself familiar with that literature. Just because a few black nationalists were sexists does not mean that black nationalism was sexist. Everyone was sexist in the 1960s. Even liberals. It’s bewildering that he thinks that somehow Thomas’s patriarchal or punitive worldview are rooted in black capitalism. And I didn’t see any evidence of the genealogy of Thomas’s thought in the book. I agree that his opinions are as described by Robin, but I just don’t get why he calls them black nationalist. I do appreciate the book’s focus on Thomas as an ideologue in his own right and not a Scalia shadow. That latter description has always bugged me.

[Murtaza · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I suspect is the case with most people, before reading this book the bulk of my knowledge about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas consisted of the fact that he is a conservative, he was accused of sexual harassment at his confirmation, and that he never speaks during Supreme Court hearings. Donald Trump also recently called him “his favorite Supreme Court judge”, which on its face seems to suggest what kind of craven, self-loathing individual he must be. As it turns out, this picture is not just simplistic but wildly incorrect. Believe it or not, and I would not have believed it had I not read this book, Thomas is a lifelong militant black nationalist: an admiring student of Malcolm X and Garveyite who even gave his son an Arabic name. Amazingly enough all these details about Thomas were in plain sight in his biography and his written opinions. It seems that no one had really bothered to pay attention.

Thomas grew up in the Jim Crow south and this experience colors his entire view of America and what it can and cannot be. Unlike liberals and leftists, he does not think that racism can be overcome. To believe otherwise is a myth – one that is primarily dangerous to black people who are lulled into believing it. Thomas’s apparent alliance with the most extreme segments of the American white identitarianism are something like Malcolm’s calculation in exploring a tactical alliance with the Klan. Even his rulings from the court, often upholding the most draconian punishments for black people caught in the justice system, are apparently based on some sort of Darwinian fitness logic. Thomas is a strong believer in the black patriarch who got his family through the harsh trials of slavery and Jim Crow, as his own beloved grandfather did. He wants black men to have the right to bear arms, to be harshly defended from treasonous criminals inside their own community, and to be forged by the fires of constant adversity into the only type of people strong enough to defend against an inherently predatory white majority. This is his world.

A lot of Thomas’s proposed policies track onto the desires of actual white racists; a fact of which he is aware, but not overly concerned. Thomas expects white people to be racist and believes this barrier can never be overcome. As such, it is preferable to deal with people on what he sees as honest terms. He supports free market policies because he believes that the impersonal market is one of the only zones of contestation where black people potentially can create real freedom for themselves: an idea of black libertarianism and economic autonomy that was reflected in his youth by organizations like the Black Panthers. He is also aware of the distaste with which he is viewed by his own community, much of which is liberal and leftist in orientation. Thomas says that it “pains him that he is seen as working against his own community.” Indeed, in his own mind, he is doing the exact opposite by administering the hard standards that he believes shaped him into who he is.

This is one of my favorite types of book because it is essentially a history of ideas told through the life story of a person. In this case the ideas being discussed are those of right-wing black nationalism. You can disagree with Clarence Thomas. But you should not underestimate him, as many of his liberal critics do with great condescension. While the book doesn’t grapple with the possibility of personal corruption infiltrating his rulings and worldview over the years, his ideology demonstrates its own internally consistent logic. It’s a logic forged by the bleak realities of four centuries of black life in the United States, an upbringing in the totalitarian world of Jim Crow and a childhood that was almost destroyed by an absent father before being rescued by a sternly patriarchal grandparent. According to Thomas's worldview, human beliefs and practices may fluctuate over time, but in the end they always revert back to the mean. Anyone seeking to rebut him should consider grappling with the force of such a claim.

[Bryan Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Robin provides the reader with an interesting look at Thomas's jurisprudence. This is not a biography, but more of a political science narrative.

To Robin, Thomas comes from black patriarchy, tough on crime, pro-capitalist, and black nationalism.

He writes, "The central claim of this book—Thomas is a black nationalist whose conservative jurisprudence rotates around an axis of black interests and concerns—is a secret hiding in plain sight."

Highly recommend this book.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Corey Robin unmasks the mystery of one of the most polarising supreme court judges, and in doing so, unearths America's complicated race problem. Robin is astute and meticulous in his documentation and reading of Thomas. However, a more detailed outline of the infamous sexual harassment case with Anita Hill would have been helpful, especially for readers who aren't old enough to have seen it on TV, and folks outside of America who aren't so hip to the situation...

[Debbie Notkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been interested in this book since I first heard Robin talk about it on a podcast when it was published. I think that Jamal Greene's How Rights Went Wrong is what finally pushed me over to reading it.

Robin is an especially thoughtful and careful writer and analyst, and he went into this book with a stated intention of not airing his disagreements with Thomas, but just trying to find the through-line that explains a man who is clearly not stupid, but who is easy to dismiss as stupid if you don't understand where he's coming from. I was struck at the beginning by the observation that the only two Supreme Court justices who have frequently been publicly accused of being lazy and sleepy are Thomas ... and Thurgood Marshall. Hmm. Wonder what the connection could be.

Using biographical data, published writing and speeches, and Supreme Court opinions, Thomas draws a convincing picture of a man who is motivated by three overwhelming beliefs:

First, nothing white people do will ever save or truly help black people, so black people must help themselves, and the road to self-help lies in independence.

Second, that capitalism and self-defense are the roads to black independence, so all decisions and opinions must push towards available business opportunities and gun ownership for everyone so that black people cannot be deprived of those things.

Third, that Thomas's grandfather, a strict and sometimes punitive man who took over Thomas's upbringing in the middle of his childhood, is the exemplar of what black people need to save themselves: hard guidance, rigor, and very high standards.

Put them together and you get a bizarre capitalist black nationalism with a sountrack of poisonous pedagogy: never make it easier for a black person to avoid jail or get a handout; always make it easier for a black person to start a business or buy a gun; and never, ever believe for a moment that an easier life will make a person stronger, better, or safer.

It isn't pleasant. If you're me (or, apparently Corey Robin), it can be stomach-turning. But it is consistent; it holds together, and Robin makes a very compelling case for understanding how Thomas could have traveled from being an overt black nationalist in college to being the Supreme Court justice he is today, without betraying his own beliefs or toadying to his white colleagues on the bench or elsewhere.

I think what I appreciated most about this book was not the insights into Thomas but the insights into conservative Black thought in general.

[JP Beaty · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and deeply troubling account of Clarence Thomas’ jurisprudence. The book does an admirable job of tracing Thomas’ youthful fascination with black nationalism into the bleak fatalism of his conservatism. As a piece of revisionist analysis the book carefully unmoors Thomas from the popular understanding of him as Scalia’s lapdog and draws out the unique bleakness of his constitutional vision, outside the norms of the extreme right. The section on capitalism and the first amendment is a unique take In particular the final sections analysis of the figure of the black patriarch emerging from his writings on the second amendment and the carvel state is unsettling and brilliant. Overall, I appreciate the books attempt to take the intellectual positions of Thomas seriously while still leaving the reader unsettled by his worldview. The similarities in premises between Thomas and many on the left is a good starting point for thinking about how to formulate an alternative politics.

[Kaleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, controversial book. Clarence Thomas was a black nationalist in college, and the traditional narrative is that he did a 180, and totally renounced all of his old beliefs as he became more conservative. This book argues the opposite, that Clarence Thomas is still a black nationalist who believes that America today is still deeply racist. Thomas is a conservative because he thinks black capitalism, patriarchy, and surviving the adversity of racism are the solution.

The thesis is well-argued, with lots of exploration into Thomas' judicial opinions and interviews to piece together his philosophy. Thomas brings up race constantly, even when other justices don't notice it, but he often steers it towards a conservative ruling. For example, when defending gun rights, he brought up how lynch mobs would kill unarmed black men during Reconstruction. Other arguments are stranger, like how Thomas often strikes down voting rights legislation to (allegedly) encourage black people to not put their faith in government.

I kept an open mind, but ultimately, I did not find many of Thomas' opinions convincing. There's a very deep sense of racial pessimism in his worldview, the sense that we haven't made economic or social progress since Jim Crow, and in fact, the adversity of Jim Crow was better for black people in some ways than now. Overall, a really interesting, provocative book. I'm worried I'm going to become very annoying and just read books about the law, so watch out for that.

4.5

Quotes

"On the Court, Thomas has continued to believe—and to argue, in opinion after opinion—that race matters; that racism is a constant, perhaps ineradicable feature of American life; and that the best hope for black people lies within themselves, not as individuals but as a separate community with separate institutions, apart from white people. This is the man Donald Trump has called his favorite justice.”

“The carceral state re-creates the kind of adversity African Americans once suffered under Jim Crow, the kind of adversity that produced Myers Anderson. In other words, though Thomas owns up to the racist dimensions of the carceral state, he believes it is beneficial to African Americans—despite that racism, or perhaps even because of it.”

“His jurisprudence may be a bitter mix of right-wing revanchism and black nationalism, but it is distinctively American and of the moment. It begins with the belief that racism is permanent, the state is ineffective, and politics is feeble, and ends with a dystopia that looks painfully familiar: men armed to the teeth, people locked up in jails, money ruling all, and racial conflict as far as the eye can see.”

[Andrew]

Talk about a controversial thesis. But one I ultimately wound up agreeing with.

Simply put, per Robin, there was no grand epistemic break between the young black radical Thomas and the old conservative radical Thomas, but rather a strong continuity, which is to say a lionization of the black patriarch, against women both white and black, white liberal institutions and do-gooders (some of whom are frankly just as condescending as he claims), blacks from wealthier backgrounds that claim to represent the downtrodden of their population, and anyone else who doesn’t fit his narrative of the individual black man ascending from poverty to lead his community to Zion. I’m too young to remember the Anita Hill situation, but billboards in the South comparing Joe Biden to Bull Conner? Fascinating. Even if you disagree with that controversial thesis, it’s a case worth hearing.

[Teddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and brisk read by an eminent left-wing scholar that, happily, engages with Thomas's life, jurisprudence, and philosophy in a way the standard center-left Greenhouse-Toobinite dismissal does not (a dismissive reaction that, Robin rightly suggests, carries not a faint whiff of racist condescension). The first two-thirds of this book are provocative and very interesting. But Robin is so deeply cynical about textualism and originalism asserts in the last section an extravagant and ultimately unsupported theory of that jurisprudential philosophy and its motivations and winds up obscuring more than he clarifies. (To be clear, the trouble is not that Robin rejects originalism and texutalism. He does, and that's fine. It's that he doesn't believe anyone in the legal world, especially Thomas, genuinely subscribes to these ideas on the merits.)

The best example of Robin's legal realism leading him to confusion comes in his discussion of the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th Amendment and Thomas's putative motivations for resuscitating it in his McDonald v. Chicago concurrence. We are told this opinion is a product of Thomas's "Black Constitution," his idiosyncratic reading of the post-Civil War amendments. Unlike the remainder of the Court's conservatives, who found in a majority opinion that the Second Amendment applies to the states via the due-process clause of 14A, Thomas argued at length that the p+i clause is the proper way to incorporate the right to bear arms. Why? Never mind that constitutional scholars of every political persuasion have argued that the p+i clause was wrongly gutted or that Thomas has long been a critic of substantive due process: Robin thinks Thomas, deeply pessimistic about the possibility of racial coexistence in the U.S. (a plausible imputation, by the way, as Robin shows earlier) dredged this clause from centuries of dormancy only because it provides the most direct path to entrench the right of black men to defend themselves against white terror. He dismisses the far simpler explanation that Thomas is following an emerging scholarly consensus on the grounds that "Thomas is not an especially fastidious jurist" -- the rare instance where Robin's analysis smacks of Toobin's glib assertions about the justice -- and instead says a grim view of zero-sum racial warfare underlies this opinion. It seems far likelier to me that Thomas, like a lot of other people, thinks the 14th Amendment properly understood incorporates a limited set of privileges or immunities against state infringement rather than a nebulous and ever-expanding set of rights.

This pattern recurs. We are told that Thomas's opinion in Utah v. Strieff is not the product of a textualist view on the exclusionary rule, but rather because Thomas "believes [Robin hedges with "This may be . . ." to begin the sentence, but by the end of the paragraph has dispensed with the pretense of humility about Thomas's inner beliefs] a carceral state, even if it's racist . . . provides African Americans with every reason they need to steer clear of trouble." Robin's confusion about Thomas's motivations also generates some unintentionally funny (the justice wants "a world in which there is an obvious connection, tight and clear to all, between the harm that one does and the harm that is visited upon one as a result" -- really, Corey, it's striking to you that a judge would treat this millennium-old principle of justice as a desideratum?) and blinkered ("Black people, [Thomas] suggests, suffer less from overpolicing than from police indifference to crimes committed against them" -- he's not alone in this suggestion, but I get that the 1990s are ancient history and Alec MacGillis's recent piece on Baltimore was a long read) commentary.

But this is an objection I was always going to have, as someone sympathetic to, e.g., criticisms of substantive due process on unsexy textualist grounds. Corey Robin is a perceptive thinker and his analyses of the Right always force me to think. This book contains a valuable and overdue engagement with the nexus between Thomas's early life, his college-era black nationalism, and his contemporary jurisprudence, and it offers insights for readers coming at it from the left and right alike (though I'd have enjoyed a more-direct comparison between Thomas's totalizing racial pessimism and that of Ta-Nehisi Coates). I'm just not convinced, as Robin appears to be, that Clarence Thomas uses originalism and textualism as smokescreens for his true project of forcing black Americans to submit to a carceral state so they might build personal responsibility and defend themselves against the constant of white supremacy with guns. I doubt Thomas would say he does, either. Maybe I don't have the same window into his thoughts.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most eye-opening books I've ever read about someone prominent in American politics. For years I have given no thought to Clarence Thomas except to regret his existence. However this exploration of his opinions on politics based on interviews he's given and the dissents and opinions he's written while on the Supreme Court is enlightening. I had no idea Thomas is a black nationalist; that in college he was an admirer of the Black Panthers and Malcolm X (and still is an admirer of the latter); or that his conservatism is in rooted his black nationalism. He considers white liberals racists, and dishonest for not being able to admit it. He considers the Civil Rights Movement inherently flawed because it's goal (in his view) was to compel white American elites to grant legal and political rights to Americans; and what white elites can give, they can also take away. He believes that the Civil Rights Movement has actually harmed African-Americans, because without Jim Crow, African-Americans were "deprived of the chance to triumph over adversity...which is the core of human dignity." Which makes me wonder: is Thomas stupid enough to think that black people no longer face adversity? Thomas argues that instead of the futile pursuit of political power in a country which whites will always dominate, African-Americans should turn their energies to business, to the accumulation of wealth in their own communities. This belief is in part due to the example of Thomas' grandfather, a businessman who prospered in Jim Crow Georgia. What Thomas doesn't seem to grasp is that the ability to acquire wealth is meaningless in a state that doesn't recognize the right of the person who acquired it to keep it. I wonder how the Tulsa race riots, in which a white mob burned down 35 blocks of the Greenwood District, home to some of the most successful African-American owned businesses in the U.S. at the time, figure into Thomas' thinking. The question is partly rhetorical: I have a fairly good idea. Thomas is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment: in his opinion in McDonald v Chicago, he ties the Second Amendment to the Fourteenth (the amendment to the Constitution granting former slaves United States citizenship and all constitutionally guaranteed rights). Perhaps he thinks all a black business owner needs is a gun and he'll be fine?

I was surprised to learn that Thomas is an admirer of Spike Lee: does he honestly think Lee's career would have been possible without the Civil Rights Movement?

And Thomas's views on gender are even more problematic: he believes the bedrock of the black community is the black man. I am not going to go into this: it's just one more version of the tired idea that if men live up to their responsibilities and women support them in that then all a community's problems will be solved. This belief in part fueled the rage with which he responded to Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment: they were, to Thomas, nothing more or less than a black woman collaborating with white liberals to undermine a black man's authority.

This book is a bit of a slog at times. But to me it was very much worth it. I used to think Thomas was an idiot, to the extent that could be true of someone who graduated from Yale Law School. Now I know that at his best he's intellectually dishonest and at his worst...well, where to begin?

[Christopher McQuain · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 -- All of the deep learning; lucidity and erudition; and subtle, expansive observation and argumentation one has come to expect from a Corey Robin book are in full force here. With its abundant fresh, sharp, nuanced takes on a subject as vaguely known and misunderstood (by both supporters and critics) as he is galvanizing, THE ENIGMA OF CLARENCE THOMAS is both a sobering accounting of the perverse (yet, as it turns out, disturbingly understandable) worldview of one of the most powerful, extreme conservatives in the United States government...and a real pleasure to read.

[Valarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corey Robin did a great job parsing the rationale for Clarence Thomas' jurisprudence and making it make sense, even when it doesn't at first glance (sometimes it's contradictory, but it's always consistent). If you're a Supreme Court watcher or a fan of the Constitution, this is a relatively short, but very engaging (and disconcerting) read.

[Fred Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author of this book was on NPR after "Roe vs. Wade" was reversed, and it sounded interesting enough and important enough for a read.

For those of us who remember the hearings on Clarence Thomas's nomination to the Supreme Court, it's hard to believe that he has come so far that he is now the most powerful justice on the Court. We already knew that he was unfit to be there in the first place.

What I never appreciated until reading this book is how strange and dangerous Thomas is. This book focuses on what Thomas has said in his decisions, speeches, and writings, and adds biographical details to provide a view of who Thomas is and how he thinks. He was formerly a young radical (McGovern was not liberal enough for him), and now adheres to a philosophy that the rights revolution had a negative impact on people, and what black people need is strong black men (yes, men -- not so much women). He's against gun control because black men need guns to protect their families. He's in favor of punitive measures (even those inflicted by police and in prisons that are not lawful because those don't fit within the definition of "punishment") because those will lead to strong black men.

Thomas is a weird man who should never have been on the Court in the first place, and now we're stuck with the results of his damaged thinking.

I gave this book three stars because it's often hard to follow, although it's still useful to get an idea of who Thomas is. It's not a pleasant read if you're like me and can't stand Thomas.

If you are looking for more information about the hearings and Anita Hill, this is not the book. They get mentioned briefly. Since I feel a need to review Thomas's most humiliating moment (and there is no doubt that he was guilty of sexual harassment), I'm going to read another book focusing on that.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, succinct book on some of the roots of Clarence Thomas’ thinking. Basically, Robin’s thesis is that much of Thomas’ approach to the constitution is driven by a black nationalism that flowered in his collegiate times and that still burns inside him despite his move rightward since then.

Robin doesn’t just say this out of nowhere. He gets information from collegiate classmates, takes seriously Thomas’ own comments on his formative influences (beyond black nationalism, he has actually read Ayn Rand) and more.

Unfortunately, given Thomas’ penchant for not commenting to people like book authors, or to much of the media BESIDES conservative ideological media — as Robin shows, he comments to them in spades — Robin can’t bounce all of these thoughts off Thomas, though most of them seem largely correct.

The book opens by noting some white liberals have treated Thomas to the same “lazy black” and “ideological puppet of a white justice on the court” motif that Thurgood Marshall faced from white conservatives. Thomas is encouraging readers to take Thomas at his word, through this. (I saw a white liberal former editor of The New Republic, Isaac Chotiner, do just this, claiming on Twitter Thomas didn’t understand the word “deign” when he used it during his confirmation hearings, while I was reading this book.)

I found this very good, probably borderline 4/5 stars, and gave it the bump upward.

I have a few observations, as well as a couple of questions I posted for Robin on social media. I’ll update this review with any response.

Observation: I never thought it was worth my time reading Thomas Sowell and Robin confirmed that. If Sowell really thinks capitalism allowed black slaves to limit the power of slaveowner capitalists, he needs to read the likes of Edward Baptist’s “The Half Has Never Been Told.” Fact is that white masters new from experience just how much torturous punishment to use. Fact is that white slaver ship captains knew from experience what an acceptable loss rate was. Sowell also ignores “Breeder” slaves. He also ignores W.E.B. Dubois’ estimates on how many black slaves were illegally brought into the U.S. after 1807.

That said, Sowell made a left-to-right pilgrimage similar to Thomas’ and Thomas was introducted to his writing for just that reason.

Robin shows that part of black nationalism is an emphasis on black patriarchy. The 60s peace and love movements had problems with women and gender issues in general; the Black Panthers had them in spades.

Robin has two takeaways from this. One is that Thomas basically makes no effort to extend his constitutional jurisprudence on race to issues of gender. Unspoken: To do so would empower black women and undercut an old-time patriarchy.

Second, because of this, Anita Hill was an “overdetermined” challenge for Thomas. Black and female both, an “intersectionality” hit, if one will. That said, Thomas still believes “his truth” about the confirmation hearings and his time working with Hill. And, his anger was real.

Robin also shows that, contra traditional modern black (and white) liberalism, blacks should not expect salvation at the ballot box. His hostility to most Voting Rights Acts claims are as great or greater than any white conservative justice. His bottom line, per Robin is that “we’re outnumbered.”

So: Why does Thomas (if he says anything) think the 2nd Amendment will uniquely save black America when, per his "We're outnumbered" thesis, there are a lot more whites with guns just like there's a lot more white voters? I’m sure that, since Thomas is as selective in his constitutional theorizing as any other justice, he has no answers.

Question: Does Thomas really reconcile 13th-15th Amendments with his "original Constitution" or is this more a rhetorical trope?

Related observation: I know Lincoln et al appealed BEYOND the Constitution to the Declaration; sounds like Thomas is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Again, thought, this is something that he probably would have no answer for.

I did think Robin, on a related issue, did probably “force” the idea of dividing Thomas’ thoughts into “White Constitution” and “Black Constitution.”

One last question, which I indirectly asked on Twitter before I started reading.

Everybody who knows Thomas knows that Ginni Thomas is white. People who know more know that he was married before and his first wife was black. Given the black nationalism issue, and that black pride and purity were emphasized by groups like the Panthers, when did Thomas shift in his personal life and why? Was this a calculated move, just as it was to hire a couple of constitutional scholars for “coaching” not too long before his was nominated to the appellate bench?

Not having received answers after a month, and with more reflection, I dropped this to four stars.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book succeeds when it carefully analyzes Thomas' legal opinions. He does not emerge as a black nationalist, since Robin never is able to offer a coherent definition as to what that means in the 21st century. Citing everyone from Booker T. Washington to Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey to Thomas Sowell only muddies the definition. Thomas has been a conservative for most of his public career. Robin tries to make the case that Thomas is that way because of his grandfather's strict parenting, and there may be something to the proposition. Certainly Thomas invokes his grandfather's lessons often during speeches and opinions. That being said, it seems less a matter of juridical conservatism --- even Scalia was too liberal for Clarence Thomas --- than a "get off my lawn!" temperament. There are also logistical problems inherent in the Thomas world view attributed to him by Robin. How exactly are black people to live separately from the rest of the nation without a de jure as well as de facto segregation? Thomas' attitudes are incoherent, which is not to say that he doesn't hold them. The evidence is in his decisions and dissents. In Robin's listing of those, Thomas seems to be closest to Thomas Jefferson among the Founding Fathers. He is given to messy pronouncements that get a bit sticky when you parse them. An enjoyable read save for the psychoanalysis. That only starts to get interesting when Robin examines Thomas' misogyny. Thomas dismisses his sister, who is an hourly wage earner, as a "good woman" who has not made the most of herself. He and his brothers have. It never seems to have occurred to Justice Thomas that the patriarchy was at least as important to his grandfather as his race. But in the end Robin is defeated by the most silent member of the Roberts Court in terms of understand why he ticks the way he does. But it is hard to argue with Robin's understanding of Thomas a jurist.

[Dexter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Origin Story: The Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas

This was a difficult book for me to read on two levels: (1) the legal and philosophical detail of Thomas' opinions were difficult to follow but well worth it, (2) the wincing irony that a Black justice, with a Black Nationalist sentiments, is causing just as much hurt to the minority community as the most insidious White Nationalist.

Corey Robin shapes the psychological roots of Thomas' jurisprudence. He was abandoned by his father in the deep South in Pin Point Georgia then raised by his patriarchal maternal grandfather, Myers Anderson, in Savannah, Georgia. A rigid Catholic education in all white schools then to Yale Law School as one of the first benefactors of Affirmative Action, graduating without no significant distinction and the constant reminder from his peers that he did not make it because of his intellect but the color of his skin. His participation in the Black Panther Party took root while at college. The failure of the Blank Panthers to make any substantive progress in paving a path to success for African Americans people drove him towards the ultra-conservative libertarian philosophies of the economist Thomas Sowell and philosopher, Ayn Rand.

The thesis of this book is that the combination the paternal neglect, the overwhelming patriarchy of his grandfather, Black Nationalism, and the shame of dependency on the largess of a white class through affirmative action are what drives his jurisprudence. Corey Robin goes into the most intimate legal and philosophical detail to prove his point. In my opinion, he only made one point clearer: the Supreme Court Justices should have term limits. The judicial arm of the Government should not be made fragile and remain polarized under the influence of idiosyncratic marginal views of psychologically aberrant judges

[Nathan Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though a lefty/lib, and though undoubtedly choosing to construe Thomas' jurisprudence through a particular lens, Robin does it in a way a conservative can easily sympathize with. Cheap polemic this isn't. Thomas' "conservative black nationalism", as Robin characterizes it, is much to be preferred, from a traditionally conservative perspective, to race-neutral, colorblind, paternalistic white liberalism.

That exact colorblind liberalism, however, has been a core element of recent conservative fusionism, but has been subjected to withering critique, not only from the race-conscious, social justice left (coded as black and black-centric), but also from a revanchist race-conscious right (coded as white). This documents the way one black, race-conscious leftist in his youth maintained that consciousness, and maintains many of the same premises, as he evolved into a rightist. And thus that the premises do not make the case for leftism.

Much else is covered in the book, but just wanted to point this out.

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unsettling.

[Pablo Aun · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated that this book attempted to show a nuanced and (mostly) unbiased portrayal of Clarence Thomas. It will definitely push me to consider his opinions closely and with a new perspective.

However, I think that the author really overstates this almost sinister black nationalist construction of Thomas. The author seems to jump at shadows and read into Thomas’ opinions his created portrayal and I’m not sure it entirely works.

While I enjoyed the first section and most of the second section, I did not really enjoy (maybe I’m just too dumb) the last section and the treatment of the constitution. I did not understand or appreciate this attempt to split the “black” and “white” constitution. It is possible that maybe Thomas just actually believes in federalism and originalism? Furthermore, the “black” constitution is just enshrined amendments in the constitution as a whole and to attempt to split it from the rest seems wrong.

The author seems to dislike the concept of originalism, describing it as “undemocratic”. However, I do not quite understand what is undemocratic about the approach. Especially since the method of interpretation the author favors is the one that has largely created the current substantive due process (while this gives people more rights, it’s not exactly democratic to have unelected justices to choose what rights magically apply to this clause) situation. Thomas’ view of reinstating the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th is arguably the more honest reading of the amendment and while there are valid arguments for retaining substantive due process, it’s odd to try to make his view seem almost sinister. Furthermore, there is a democratic process to protect rights (legislation) and for rights that should never be touched regardless of circumstance (constitutional amendment). I disagree with the author’s demonization of federalism and state sovereignty when these are the fundamentals of our nation and constitution. I also think it’s obvious the author believes the living constitution is the most valid interpretation and that the court during FDR until the 80s is the best stretch of the court. There is some value to this, but there is also a lot arguably wrong. Namely commerce clause and substantive due process.

Regardless of my qualms, the author has an intriguing premise and it’s obviously well researched. I enjoyed reading it and it challenged me in many ways. Maybe I have more growing to do and reflection. I have always enjoyed Thomas’ jurisprudence (for what I have read) and I am interested in continuing to examine it critically and objectively.

[Litbitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I've heard several interviews with the author, and the idea of Clarence Thomas as a Black Nationalist with the ultimate success of African-Americans foremost in his judicial philosophy was so far from what I had crafted him to be in my own mind that I finally had to dive in.

The book is accessible to the legal novice, getting just far enough into the weeds to provide numerous examples of Thomas' opinions and the motivations behind them. Robin also provides just enough biographical information about Thomas to help us understand how he arrived at the somewhat unique view of the US and racism which he holds tightly. To wit: racism is inevitable; any attempt to alleviate that by the government is just an effort by White people to improve life for themselves or make themselves look better; and African-Americans should remove themselves from White society, make as much money as possible, and create their own self-sustaining communities, essentially isolated from the US while still within its borders. Don't try to make things better - it's a losing battle. Sorry, African-American MEN should do that. Black women are basically here just to support the Black men.

Even without the sexism, it's a bleak, bleak view of society. I can't say I disagree with all of his conclusions: I do believe a lot of the actions done to "help" Black people have been motivated by White self-interest, etc. But I don't believe cutting & running is the solution. Deconstructing White Supremacy seems a far better goal. I read this in order to better understand this guy & hopefully extend some compassion to him, and that worked. I have more respect for him than I held previously, but am as philosophically distant from him as ever.

For a satirical version of at least part of this perspective, read The Sellout, by Paul Beatty: The Sellout

[Sean Chick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a bit surprised this book came out so soon after the second edition of The Reactionary Mind, since Robin is not a fast writer in my experience. More shocking was Robin's thesis that Clarence Thomas is a black nationalist. To get at this Robin makes references to Thomas' past as a campus radical and before that as being among the first to attend integrated schools in Savannah. As with Robin's sharp writing and observations, it makes for a read that is cerebral, humane, and cutting. Part I, which is about race, is a superb entry and a book unto itself. Most of all it gives one a way to look into a mind most disregard, either as a loyal conservative ally or a black stooge of a racist Republican Party, and both assertions are sometimes done with racist thinking.

I found myself admiring aspects of Thomas' ideas, such as his preference for the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment. I understood Thomas' experiences of Northern racism, his ambivalence towards affirmative action, and how that fueled his broad mistrust of white people. I came to see him as a man shaped by race, peculiar life experiences, and the intellectual tumult of his day. Thomas became a person I could disagree with but see as another human instead of as conservative court justice number 2. In that regard this book is a stunning success.

The book does have tenuous claims, such as the exact nature of Thomas Sowell's influence on Thomas. Malcolm X is much more clear. The idea of a "black" and "white" constitution as descriptors fails, even if the ideas behind each are intriguing. Robin's leftist bias is held in check, but can still be seen here and there. At its best it adds color and argument; at its worst it fails to understand what is obvious to a person not wholly supportive of the left in 2020. It also means some lines of inquiry, such as the collapse of the black middle class after 1965, are not even mentioned although it likely influenced Thomas. His few paragraphs on Justice Harlan seemed unfair to Harlan, and in keeping with the kind of identity politics he otherwise takes to task in the book.

Robin can never explain how a man with such a bleak racial worldview inhabits an elite world that is mostly white (right and left) with such success and in some cases ease. It seems Thomas' black nationalism is less a worldview than simply an experience that has stuck with him and sometimes explodes forth. We each have many voices inside ourselves that can often contradict. There is no unitary person, and Robin seems at times forced to make Thomas such a person. This was also the major weakness of The Reactionary Mind, where conservatives were forced into a box of sorts.

The bombshell from Robin is directed not at Thomas but at strains of leftist thought that see racism as inevitable and unbeatable, much like Thomas does in in his writings. This leads to a despair that feeds conservative political goals. I noted this in the writings of Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, both of home were conservative at heart, and I am glad Robin had the guts to point this out. His argument that we can "go back and start again with different premises" about race in America is bold in this age. Yet, being that he is a straight while male Jewish professor (the white male being the left's current whipping boy) I have my doubts if many will heed the call. Robin, however, may have planted some seeds. Time will tell, although a society that is increasingly unequal in wealth but also rapidly becoming racially diverse is not a scenario known to create nuanced views of race nor social cohesion. It is telling that civil rights reform and protest was only successful (1954-1965) when we were at our most broadly prosperous and during a period of relative social cohesion.

[Leib Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book Review
3/5 stars
The Enigma of Clarence Thomas
"1/2 passable analysis; 1/2 Standard Left-wing Claptrap"

This book is moderately "food for thought," but certainly not good enough to be on the Basic Books imprint.

Best quote of the whole book--and Thomas's jurisprudence in a nutshell (p.191): "One of the great failures of contemporary politics is that it forsakes the hard-won knowledge of the black past for a false promise of the black future; 'We prefer the speculations of seers and clairvoyants to the certainty of past experience.'"

Clarence Thomas's extreme reticence/ laconicism tends to obscure the fact that he actually has a very agile legal mind. (A total of about 700 opinions, approximately 25 per year.)

Within the void of his silence, people are able to ascribe positions to him and create a man that never existed. (Herbert Hoover was another example of someone that had a "fictitious person" created on his behalf by a trillion biased newspaper articles, one at a time.)

To the end of getting at the Real Clarence Thomas, Corey Robin takes the trouble to READ what Thomas has *actually written*. (Thomas himself says [p.12]: "Let them read my opinions. I say what I have to say in my opinions.")

Robin provides us with a *somewhat* thoughtful book, after having taken the challenge that extremely few other pundits have-- i.e., actually *reading* Justice Thomas's legal opinions. (In another time in place, the purpose of academic discourse was to confront/analyze the ideas of people with whom you disagreed and not demonize them.)

Robin, right within the introduction (p.15): "I reject virtually all of Thomas's views. In presenting his vision, however, I've opted for interpretation and analysis rather than objection and critique."

And to that end, the book is very heavily sourced: 61 pages of bibliography / embedded notes (out of 200 pages of prose).

His conclusion is that Clarence Thomas is actually a Black Nationalist who started out on the Radical Left and, after realizing the inability of government to address these problems moved to the Radical Right.

Robin makes this deduction by reading Thomas's actual words rather than answering strawman objections.

Even as radical as Thomas's ideas may seem, in reality they are foreshadowed by great thinkers before him: BT Washington. Frederick Douglass. Malcolm X. Thomas Sowell. (Incidentally, every single one of those authors is referenced in this book):

1. Integration/ equality of public accommodation is not going to solve what are essentially financial problems;

2. Learning to make/ sell things is a much more reliable route to income;

3. Black people can figure out how to do things that generate income, *given enough time*, and being left alone by the federal government. (And the corollary is that: state power and state action are Public Enemy Number One.)

*******
In other ways, this author is extremely intellectually dishonest.

Standard left wing fare:

1. If police officers arrest 100 people for stealing hubcaps and 98% of them are black, it can only be because the police are racist and not because black people disproportionately steal hubcaps. (p.208) in this author's mind, any police action that brings up more black people than whites is racist by definition.

2. Capitalism is the Number One bête noire, and strong policing can't be used only to protect innocent citizens from crimes. No, it has to be "used to shore up markets and threaten poor and working class people with the prospect of punishment should they not conform to the market's dictates" (p.210). The author calls this "carceral capitalism."

*******

The Justice Thomas that is shown from these pages is the opposite of most black intellectuals in two very important ways:

1. He is extremely succinct;
2. He is an actual Student of History (How many living black people have actually read Frederick Douglass or WEB Dubois? VERY FEW.)

Thomas's life path/formative experiences were something like:

1. Birth in Gullah speaking Pinpoint, Georgia. (He knows black people very well, and they are not an abstraction.)

2. Attendance at Holy Cross College, graduation #9 out of 521. (He had the experience of participating in the Black Power Movement-- and the observation that it went nowhere fast.)
3. Completion of law school at Yale. (He found that his degree was not helpful getting a job because he was constantly laboring under the suspicion that he was "only an affirmative action admit.")

4. Working in the government. (Here he experienced the fact that Well Meaning White People run this or that government program to help black people out of contempt and not empathy.)

5. Appointment to Supreme Court. (Efforts to produce the clutching hand of the state in order to give black people the chance to figure it out themselves.)

Second order thoughts:

1. I wonder if Corey Robinson is married to a black person, or has one as an in-law. This is the first white person that I've ever encountered that knows about "colorstruck-ism" / light skin privilege within black people. (p. 22): "...black liberalism is the language of light skin privilege."

2. Eric Hoffer wrote about these things 3/4 of a century ago. ("The Orthodox Jew is less frustrated than the emancipated Jew and the segregated Negro in the South is less frustrated than the Negro in the North.")

3. Even a cursory reading of black history since the Reconstruction can show that Well Meaning White People are always and everywhere bad news for blacks (if for no other reason than the fact that they engage blacks in the false delusion that the state will be the instrument of their salvation). But, if Clarence Thomas is seen as an extremist as a result of looking into the historical record, is there any hope at all for black American people?

Will they ever come to the conclusion that the state cannot solve problems? (It's been a century and a half since the end of Reconstruction. Why should the next century and a half be any different?)

Even though Thomas's ideas are, in a sense, recapitulative of all of the other masters of thought that I've mentioned before..... He is significantly different in the fact that he is actually in a position to have a positive influence.

4. (p.163). The author's credibility was significantly damaged the moment he took a position on the Anita Hill affair. What does that have to do with Thomas's jurisprudence?

5. The author does a lot of strange mixing of apples and oranges. As in the 9th chapter (p.192), ... "The White Constitution makes black freedom possible through the instruments of policing, punishment, in prison." And yet just recently commonly author was making us believe that "white Constitution" was a synonym for the Constitution up until the Reconstruction amendments. There's nothing in Justice Thomas's jurisprudence to make us believe that he inherently prefers that just because it might be racist, but maybe he *does* want people to experience consequences for their actions.

6. It is true that the welfare state and non-classical liberalism has been very bad for black people. If somebody can see that, how is it not logical to want to reverse the direction of the country from the time of the Great Society?

7. It's probably beyond the scope of the book, but the author does treat governments that have "and obvious connection [between criminal behavior and state sanction], tight and clear to all" (p.196) as a floating abstraction. Meanwhile, in places like China and Singapore are very authoritarian, but also very safe.

8. Even though the author is quite biased against thomas, he unintentionally demonstrates to us that s
Supreme Court Justices have no blanket immunity from being rip roaring idiots. (I'm thinking Sotormayor, p.203. Did she really quote Ta-Nehisi Coates in a Supreme Court opinion?)
*******

Chapter summaries:

°°°Part I (Race)
1. Formative experiences in Thomas's early years up to about 1985 that inform his views on race.

2. Thomas takes the experience of racial stigma as a given and asks questions about what can be done within the existing reality (as opposed to an idealized reality) and his first and last question in many of his opinions is "in what way does this benefit / harm black people?

3. Integration is not the panacea that many think it is, and the subtext of it is that "black people are so obtuse, they cannot solve their own problems and integration is their only hope."

°°°Part II (Capitalism)

4. Markets know no color, and a portable skill does not depend on government largesse.

5. Restricting the power of government is a way to keep it away from black people (p.106). The three tools are: a. De-emphasizing the power of voting (don't worry about voting laws that are too restrictive); b. Demonstrate that the state is unable to improve the lot of black people (a significant fraction of his opinions look at statues in light of how they affect black people); c. Deprive the state of legislative and regulatory tools to regulate black people. (Interesting discussion in this chapter of the amorphous/stretched-beyond-recognition Interstate Commerce Clause.)

6. There's actually quite a bit of discussion here about why campaign finance laws are treated as freedom of speech issues. Something like: if money is speech, and if black people want their voice represented and they have to pay for it.... Maybe they will set about the task of making money in order to communicate their preferences. And that will draw them inexorably toward the market's sphere and away from the political sphere.

°°°Part III (Constitution)

7. Originalism is not with respect to the
entire Constitution, but only the parts that would make sense from the perspective of a black head of household. (So, as here, the right to bear arms would not only be because that was the original meaning of the Constitution. But, it could be interpreted that: a black man has the right to defend his family.) Several opinions of Thomas are cited that discuss the effect that laws might have on black people.

Adumbration of the chapters on the "White Constitution" (the parts before abolition--shorthand for "devolution to States' Rights")/"Black Constitution" (this includes the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that were added during Reconstruction--shorthand for "increased Federal control.")

(p. 153): "In returning to the White Constitution of slavery and Jim Crow, Thomas hopes to find the resources for African-American renewal today."

8. Complicated discussion of "Black Constitution" as a way to "revive the privileges or immunities clause and abandon equal protection and due process clauses." (p.174)

9. (p.191) Federalism leads to a raising of the threshold for punishment, thus to the defanging of the States, and therefore a lowering of law and order. Thomas wants to see this reversed, because in earlier times Law & Order created black people that had better habits of self-discipline that allowed them to survive slavery and Jim Crow. Some discussion of the fact that harsh conditions and prison (let's imagine a transgender "female" put in a male prison and then beaten and raped by male prisoners) are not, strictly speaking, part of the punishment announced at sentencing.

10. (p. 219): Robin doubles down on his inanity, and the empirical facts that "racism is permanent, the state is ineffective, and politics is feeble" somehow directly leads to "men armed to the teeth, people locked up in jails, money ruling all, and racial conflict as far as the eye can see."

The book started out as one about Justice Thomas's jurisprudence and ended up *yet another* strained anti-capitalist/ racism-explains-everything screed?

*******

Verdict: I would recommend this book at the second price if only to get a taste of the over 700 opinions that Justice Thomas has written.

The book is also poorly reasoned (in many respects), and taking apart the reasoning is like doing a moderate Sudoku puzzle.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

As informative as it is distressing. Really an insightful book.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enigma is the correct term. Possibly hypocrite too.

[Leem · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is precisely communities with adjoining territories and related cultures who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other.”- Sigmund Freud, The Taboo of Virginity, 1917

I spend a lot of time with right wing media: It makes me laugh and i suspect subconsciously feel superior. Clarence Thomas, however, is not Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson. This book paints a portrait of a principled, intelligent, hard-working and entirely unpleasant man.

There’s some debate about the book’s contention that he is a “black nationalist”. What is clear, is that Thomas epitomises the objectionable and counterproductive elements in the work of thinkers I respect. For example, a through-line can be found between the more “self-help” and black capitalist elements of early Malcolm-X and Clarence’s jurisprudence. Likewise, some of the more masculinist elements of the Black Panther Party can be sensed in Thomas’ ideology (as spelled out by Robin).

Thomas excels at pointing out the patronising racism of the white liberal. This puts him, not only at odds with liberals, but also most conservatives. Incidentally landing him in a camp with the left, which makes for uncomfortable reading. He will, for example, mount a critique of liberal racism to argue in favour of extending police powers. His thought exists in a sort of intellectual uncanny valley for the liberal left. Clarence Thomas is not Dinesh D'Souza, he does not - at least by all appearance - engage in bad-faith.

This book is equal parts extremely informative and disconcerting. The thought of Clarence Thomas is both intriguing and repulsive at the same time.

[Kenneth Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. I don’t necessarily buy that all of his jurisprudence is genuinely attributable to his radical worldview. That said I haven’t heard a single law professor give Thomas much thought so I do appreciate considering his ideology in its own right rather than just in the context of Scalia’s

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corey Robin did extensive research into the writings, speeches, and judicial opinions of Clarence Thomas, and he taught me so much about the Supreme Court's most extreme justice.

Thomas is a black nationalist, according to Robin, and he does not seek racial equity or a colorblind society. Instead Robin makes the argument that Thomas has given up on whites ever surrendering their supremacy in the U.S., and thus he regularly issues opinions that devalue black voting rights and other civil rights. In Thomas' mind blacks will never achieve political equity, so they should abandon efforts to influence the American political system.

Instead, according to Robin, blacks should focus on making economic gains within the black community and they should play by the rules. Thomas believes in severe restrictions on the rights of criminal defendants because he believes that a strong system of authority is necessary to teach poor black people how to behave properly. Thomas was deeply influenced by the strict, patriarchal grandfather who raised him, and Robin argues that Thomas seeks to reestablish the patriarchal authority of black men over the black community.

According to Robin, Thomas believes that states should be mostly left alone to govern themselves because he believes that the states have the best ability to curtail crime severely. Once punishment is strong and swift, Thomas believes (per Robin), black men will stop dealing drugs and committing violent crimes and instead focus on hard work and economic improvement.

As for Anita Hill, Robin argues that Thomas reacted with anger to her accusations not because he was innocent, but because he believed that the only reason he was publicly accused was because of the color of his skin (in other words, a white man would have gotten away with such behavior no questions asked).

[Gayla Bassham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am awarding this book 5 stars not because I agree with every word in it (I don't) but because it is an illuminating and path-breaking book that should be read by everyone with an interest in the Supreme Court, even (and perhaps especially) liberals like me! This is a short book with a lot to say, and it is worth a careful read. Corey Robin's thesis is that Clarence Thomas's jurisprudence is fundamentally understood and (here's the provocative part) rooted in large part in Thomas's commitment to black nationalism.

Robin's argument that Thomas's decisions are motivated in large part by black nationalism and a deep-seated belief that racism is a permanent feature of American society is often convincing and always interesting. At times I felt he was stretching to make a point, or working too hard to make Thomas's worldview seem consistent. And Robin does not discuss Thomas's long second marriage to a white woman with a bent for right-wing conservative activism; she barely merits a mention. How does Thomas reconcile his belief in inherent white racism with his marriage to a white woman? How has Virginia Thomas influenced his views? There's got to be a story there -- it's hard to believe that Thomas has completely compartmentalized his work from his home life, given his wife's deep interest in politics. And yet there's no hint of it in Robin's book. To me this felt like a missed opportunity. (Anita Hill gets slightly more attention -- Robin points out that (a) journalism since the infamous hearings has established the truth of Hill's accusations but also (b) Thomas himself sincerely believed in his own innocence.)

Still, Robin has done good work here. In my experience (and I am guilty of this too), progressives have a tendency to write Thomas off as a Scalia clone, someone who functions as a reliable conservative vote without having much of interest to say himself. Robin points out that conservatives often saw Thurgood Marshall in the same way, and it's hard not to see the possibility of unconscious bias. Robin has made the case, I think, that Thomas grounds his opinions differently than other conservative justices do, even if they ultimately arrive at the same result. At a minimum, a good-faith liberal reader would be hard-pressed to walk away from this book not taking Thomas's judicial philosophy seriously and considering the challenges it poses to progressive thought. "We may wonder whether we're not trapped in the same historical moment as he, making sense of the same defeats of the last century in not dissimilar ways," Robin writes. " . . . And then we may come to a realization: that the task at hand is not to retrace and rebut his moves from premise to conclusion, but to go back and start again with different premises."

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

The level of damage-wielding, self-serving, and wounded, manchild delusion is more pernicious, perverse, and pathetic than I thought. Hi-tech lynching my ass! A well-researched but also willfully (and often spot-on) interpreted write-up of someone whose self-obsession with feeling better about themselves and their placement in the world has cost us all (socially and in terms of paying his salary). This was a sickening, enlightening, and excruciating read. I can't recommend it as an experience though it's written well enough (it's actually succinct, but doesn't feel that way at all); the lovely individual who asked me to read it with her (love ya, Bre) owes me big time.

[Brock T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good analysis of Thomas’s jurisprudence

Robin does a great job of analyzing a juror that is rarely discussed due to his quiet demeanor on the bench, but who deserves much more attention. Thomas is perhaps one of the more interesting and consequential justices to serve in the 21st century and Robin’s work will hopefully make this clearer to readers.