by
Hannes
Magerstaedt/Getty
Images)
After
a
gunman
unsuccessfully
attempted
to
bust
into
the
White
House
Correspondents’
Dinner
on
Saturday
night,
Georgetown
Law
Professor
Randy
Barnett
decided
what
the
situation
called
for
was
a
post
on
social
media
comparing
the
shooter
to
Barack
Obama.
Or,
more
accurately,
Obama’s
hypothetical
son
—
who
Barnett
presumes
would
be
a
violent
threat
to
society.
He
put
this
up
at
4:12
p.m.
on
Monday,
by
the
way.
So
this
was
not
an
ill-advised,
heat
of
the
moment
Saturday
night
post.
He
had
a
full
day-and-a-half
to
workshop
this
gem.
That
description
may
sound
like
a
hyperbolic
account
designed
to
cast
a
luminary
of
the
conservative
legal
movement
in
a
shockingly
racist
light,
but
if
anything
it
undersells
his
post:
In
case
you’re
missing
the
context
—
and
the
level
of
sheer
racism
is
distracting
—
Barnett
is
trying
to
mirror
Obama’s
2012
remark
that
“If
I
had
a
son,
he’d
look
like
Trayvon,”
which
the
former
president
offered
after
George
Zimmerman
stalked
and
killed
a
Black
teenager
for
walking
through
the
neighborhood
with
a
bag
of
Skittles.
Obama
got
emotional
imagining
this,
Barnett
jokes
about
it
because,
you
know,
racism.
Barnett’s
conservative
fellow
travelers
are
hailing
the
quip
as
clever
satire,
because
snarky
callbacks
to
14-year-old
political
speeches
about
the
violent
death
of
innocent
children
is
kneeslapping
entertainment
to
the
sort
of
people
who
say
“why
can’t
we
tell
jokes
anymore?”
and
then
this
is
the
joke.
Barnett’s
version
trips
over
its
own
laces
before
it
gets
to
the
punchline.
The
point
of
Obama’s
line
was
about
appearance
—
about
how
Black
kids
in
this
country
with
nothing
else
in
common
can
be
killed
simply
because
there
are
white
people
who’ve
decided
based
on
mere
appearance
that
they
pose
a
threat.
Barnett’s
supposedly
clever
inversion
crafts
something
meaningfully
stupider:
that
someone
who
looks
like
Obama’s
son
would
necessarily
be
a
violent
menace
to
society.
Rather
than
inverting
Obama’s
observation,
Barnett
reveals
himself
as
precisely
the
sort
of
white
guy
who
thinks
how
someone
looks
makes
them
a
threat.
Adam
Serwer
of
The
Atlantic
diagnosed
the
problem
succinctly:
You
really
cannot
overestimate
the
level
of
status
trauma
a
lot
of
white
Americans
experienced
at
the
election
of
Barack
Obama
and
how
much
of
our
politics
is
still
influenced
by
it.
Because
Barnett’s
attempt
at
comedy
isn’t
just
racist.
It’s
the
entire
psychic
boo
boo
of
right-wing
politics
distilled
into
a
Tweet.
It’s
always
about
having
to
watch
a
Black
guy
be
powerful
for
8
years.
That’s
the
lens.
Lately,
Randy
Barnett
has
embraced
a
role
as
one
of
the
loudest
cheerleaders
for
the
Trump
administration’s
effort
to
read
the
Citizenship
Clause
of
the
Fourteenth
Amendment
out
of
the
Constitution.
He
co-authored
the
New
York
Times
op-ed
attempting
to
slap
together
the
pseudo-intellectual
scaffolding
for
Trump’s
executive
order
to
deny
citizenship
to
children
born
here
to
non-citizen
parents.
But,
despite
fancying
himself
a
Fourteenth
Amendment
expert
(who
wrote
a
2021
book
titled
The
Original
Meaning
of
the
Fourteenth
Amendment:
Its
Letter
and
Spirit),
Barnett
seems
to
have
never
previously
considered
the
idea
that
the
birthright
citizenship
clause
and
the
125
years
of
precedent
that
goes
with
it
meant
anything
other
than
what
it
says.
Apparently,
his
years
of
scholarly
attention
to
the
Fourteenth
Amendment
totally
whiffed
on
this
point
until
Stephen
Miller
pointed
it
out.
Originalism
is,
after
all,
a
serious
endeavor.
This
all
springs
from
the
same
place.
Consistency
and
principle
are
unnecessary
trifles
in
a
politics
fully
defined
by
lashing
back
against
the
event
of
a
Black
president.
If
the
law
professor
needs
to
make
a
racist
joke
about
Obama’s
hypothetical
son
to
register
his
objection
to
that
fact,
he’ll
make
the
racist
joke.
If
he
needs
to
discover,
a
century
and
a
half
after
ratification,
that
the
Fourteenth
Amendment
doesn’t
mean
what
every
court
has
ever
said
it
means,
he’ll
discover
it.
There
is
no
honest
reading
of
Barnett’s
tweet
that
isn’t
ugly.
It
is
racist
as
a
literal
claim,
as
an
attempted
joke,
and
as
a
matter
of
revealed
worldview.
But
it
is
refreshing
to
see
one
of
the
figures
charged
with
providing
the
bogus
intellectual
cover
for
retrograde
bigotry
drop
the
charade
for
a
second
and
reassure
everyone
that
there
isn’t
a
high-minded
argument
for
this
project.
It’s
just
racism
and
Obama-era
grievances
all
the
way
down.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
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if
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Joe
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Managing
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