Republicans consume their control of justice with the confirmation of Justice Barrett for the Supreme

Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, goes to vote.JIM LO SCALZO / EFE

The United States Senate has offered this Monday what will probably be the last image, before the presidential elections on November 3, of the polarization that has weighed down the House these four years, by confirming Amy Coney without a single Democratic vote Barret as the 115th Supreme Court Justice, the fifth woman to sit in one of its seats in the institution's 231-year history.

The entry into the Supreme Court of Barrett, which will occupy the place left vacant by the death on September 18 of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, legend of feminism and icon of progressive causes, will consolidate the conservative majority in the highest court of the country, far beyond the elections that are held in eight days and regardless of the direction of the votes that Americans are already casting at the polls.

Barrett, 48, a devout Catholic and Orthodox interpreter of the Constitution, is the third judge President Trump places on the Supreme Court, a record for a single term.

It is the spearhead of an unusual wave of young and conservative judges, 162 from the district and 53 from the appeals circuit, with which the Republicans, after unceremoniously blocking dozens of appointments of Democratic President Barack Obama, have transformed into these four years federal justice.

"This is something to be really proud of and something to feel good about," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a linchpin in this years-long operation by Republicans to hold onto power through of the courts.

Barret's confirmation process has taken just over four weeks, a record time, and while Americans were voting in numerous states.

More than 60 million citizens have already done so by the time Barrett has received the Senate conformation, under the closed night already in the Washington Capitol, by 52 votes to 48. Not a single Democratic support has received.

It is the first time in modern history that the Senate confirms a Supreme Court justice without any vote from the minority party.

A Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, has also voted against the judge's confirmation.

Never before has a position in the Supreme Court been approved so close to the elections.

Four years ago, Republicans refused even to consider Obama's proposed judge to fill a vacancy, 10 months before the election.

They argued that it was not appropriate to do so in an electoral year and that it was the responsibility of the president who left the democratic polls to appoint the judge.

This time around, not even a pandemic has slowed Republicans.

The reception that Trump gave Judge Barrett, on September 26 in the Rose Garden of the White House, in which most of the guests were without a mask, became a super-spreading event of the Covid, after which the President himself and the first lady tested positive.

Also some senator, like Mike Lee, a member in addition to the Senate Judiciary Committee, to whom he did not hesitate to go in person during the judge's confirmation hearings.

Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the Senate, has not attended the House, after Democrats asked him not to appear in view of the five positives detected in his closest professional circle over the weekend.

His office explained that he would only come if his vote was needed to break an eventual tie.

President Trump has not wanted to miss the opportunity to display a victory just eight days before the election, and a ceremony has been organized at the White House for the judge to be sworn in.

Striking decision given the precedent of the last act in homage to the judge on the same stage.

As of today, conservative judges have a 6 to 3 majority in the Supreme Court. Gone are the years of a technical tie between conservatives and progressives that a judge considered a hinge had to break case by case.

Just one week after the elections, the new Supreme Court will hold the hearing on the fate of the health reform promoted by the Democratic Obama Administration, and contested by various Republican states and the Trump Administration, which wants to repeal it but has not presented an alternative plan .

Democrats warn of the potential for millions of Americans to be left without health coverage amid the pandemic.

Aware that they lacked the resources to stop the judge's confirmation, one Democratic senator after another has repeated the warning and asked Barrett what his position is on the case.

The judge has refused to advance her position, nor has she wanted to evaluate the court's precedents on issues such as abortion or the rights of homosexual people.

It will not be guided by "Amy's law," he simply said, but by that of the American people.

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