Clarence Thomas laments cancel culture and lack of civility in recent remarks

 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas lamented the state of the nation and condemned cancel culture and court packing in a Friday address.

While speaking to a charitable foundation run by former Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, the Associate Justice criticized the notion of court packing, National Review reported.

He said, “You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court. You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised.”

“By doing this,” he continued, “you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have a civil society.”

He went on to address the ongoing phenomenon of cancel culture, lamenting the effect it he believes it will have on younger generations of Americans.

“I’m afraid, particularly in this world of cancel culture attack, I don’t know where you’re going to learn to engage as we did when I grew up,” Thomas said, “If you don’t learn at that level in high school, in grammar school, in your neighborhood, or in civic organizations, then how do you have it when you’re making decisions in government, in the legislature, or in the courts?” 

Thomas has his own experiences with being “canceled.”

During his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 1991, Thomas was humiliated and raked over the coals by the media and liberal politicians who sought to prevent him from serving on the country’s highest court.

Then-Senator Joe Biden — who was serving as the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee — grilled Thomas over sexual harassment allegations from Thomas’s longtime assistant Anita Hill. The whole fiasco amounted to what Thomas called a “high tech lynching” and ended with his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

In recent weeks, members of the legacy media have been amplifying their attacks on Thomas and his wife, Ginni.

The Washington Examiner reported that Ginni Thomas’s role in the conservative activist group Liberty Central — an organization that files amicus briefs for cases being heard at the Supreme Court — led to many people — particularly members of the media — calling for Justice Thomas’s recusal from any case for which his wife’s organization was involved.

The Guardian reported that Thomas said that he held “civility as one of his highest virtues” and that he “learned to respect institutions and debate civilly with those who disagreed with him” as a student.

His Friday remarks indicate he is worried that future generations will not be as committed to the civil preservation of America’s institutions.