Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz spent their allotted time yesterday campaigning for the repub nomination for pres in '24. I don't know that Blackburn intends to run, but she is absolutely dog-whistling to her base with this line of questioning.

Gender issues fire up the bases - left and right. If the left campaigns for genderless you-name-it in life to fire up their base, the right amplifies it ten-fold to fire up theirs. It's the right that wants a controversy that never dies, because they benefit from it politically more than the left.

I do lament that Jackson probably feels that this is a "3rd rail" question to answer, guaranteed to offend...some group, no matter what. I wish it could be an easy, non-controversial answer, along the lines of "biologically, a man is a human born with a penis, and a woman is a human born with a vagina. Legally, we recognize the reality of gender dysphoria, and endeavor to respect how individuals identify themselves, which in a relative minority of cases does not align with biological gender".

But both left and right extremes would find a way to be offended by that. Basically, in today's absurd environment, Blackburn asked a question designed to be nothing but a political trap. For her own political benefit more than any value in vetting a future SC justice.

She's on the right, ny. The right wants a spotlight on it much more than the left. I do agree that stuff like this is most often a gift from the left to the right, but the right plays it for all it's worth and then some.