First the minor elephant in the room. Biden is a racist, so it is not surprising that he believes that it's okay to announce racist criteria for selection of a candidate. The worst part of the implication is the endorsement of the idea that race really does matter and that only someone with the correct skin color can be trusted to rule fairly for people of the same skin color. Where does that leave our Asian citizens? What this says about Biden is that he thinks he can use racism for good (or that by virtue signaling he is "protected" as good from his own racism), and that he believes that only through preference could a black woman become a Supreme Court Justice. Racism is evil and is not capable of being used as tool for good, the indirect consequences will always outweigh the supposed benefits. However, we shouldn't let Biden's racism cloud the selection.
There are far more than enough qualified black women to provide an ample pool for selecting a Supreme Court justice. We are almost certain to receive a pick that is more than qualified. It's a poor argument against a candidate that SC Justices have to be the "most" qualified person. There is no such thing in this context, only a large pool of qualified people with different strengths and weaknesses. Honest, occasionally there really is a Michael Jordan out there, but in a field like law there is no easy way to identify an MJ versus any other NBA worthy player. I have every confidence that there are worthy candidates available.
Now it's a separate question of whether Biden's criteria will cause him to avoid competent liberal (or even progressive) choices in favor of an activist. I don't credit - at all - that he'll pick a moderate to appease Manchin. He's going to pick a radical and there will be enough cover for Manchin to back the choice. Honestly, we still have the same media that claimed Merrick Garland was a moderate choice (Ha!) and that Kavanaugh was a rapist (Shame on them), there's no way they'll allow any information that's negative to get much airtime (even if it's 100% true and relevant) and a 100% chance that they'll attack people that raise reasonable objections as evil racists.
Despite what has been implied above, the court's swing voters are the moderate conservatives. The left liberal Justices almost never broke ranks, and the progressive justices never break ranks. Breyer is the last of the left liberal justices, and there's little chance he'll be replaced with a true liberal, so we'll have 3 progressives that vote in lock step on the Court. The court is at it's best when the Justices are classic liberals and believe in the rule of law and limited government. Both left progressives and religious conservatives place a strain on fundamental rights.
At the moment, the court is a bit of mess. Roberts is terrible. I don't think he has a guiding principal of law, he seems to make decisions based on some kind of meta analysis of how he thinks the decisions will be accepted by society and impact the stature of the court. It may be the most useless judicial philosophy I've ever seen. It leads to stupid, inconsistent decisions and horse trading (see the 2 recent opinions on vaccine mandate for an example - overturning 100 employer, upholding for medical facilities receiving medicare benefits) and it backfires constantly because the mushy opinions lead to more legal aggression.
Gorsuch is an odd mix of extreme conservatism and almost whimsical radical leftism. I'm left with the impression that he's easily confused by overly fixated on something. He's generally not a friend to the left, but he wrote the opinion that declared discrimination against trans people to be sex discrimination (and opened the door to the largely unresolvable conflict between born women and trans-women in sports competition).
Thomas is an interesting read. He often comes across as conservative but his legal conclusions are more strict interpretations than any kind of activism. I have a harder time figuring Alito out, he seems more conservative, less rule of law, and less notable than Thomas, but often in a similar vein.
That leaves Kavanaugh and Barrett. It's a bit early to have a strong opinion on Barrett, but so far her questions in oral arguments are few but usually pretty good. I don't think that's she is the radical conservative the left feared, but time will tell. Kavanaugh on the other hand, is probably going to be the left's best friend, at least to the extent the left returns to classic liberalism. A lot his stuff is really well thought out, respects the rule of law but also the rights of the people involved.
The biggest problem distorting opinions about the court is of course abortion rights. No one is really rational when it comes to the issue, not even the courts. The literal truth is the court created it's own mess. They choose to step into politics when they entered the frey, and its clear they'd like to be out of the game but haven't found a way to get out without opening the field to bans on abortions by the states. It's actually a tough puzzle for a country that purports to be a democracy or a republic, and it's one that has parallels all over the place in modern politics. For example, you may believe that a ban on abortions is absolutely unconstitutional and can never be allowed, at the same time you believe that a ban on "hate speech" and criminal prosecution of that is acceptable, and never realize the logical and legal inconsistency in holding those positions.
So in summary, Biden is a racist and his announcement demonstrates that, but there is no reason to believe that his racism is going to result in a pick that is any less qualified than a pick would have been without the overtly racist approach. We are very likely to get a very progressive pick, which automatically means they will be outcome focused with little overall regard to the rule of law or legal consistency.
