My God. Maybe she *is* the first Jewish-Mexican white nationalist.

Omg. She did it again pic.twitter.com/ELL4S5vqJb

— Pardes Seleh (@PardesSeleh) September 7, 2018

But then, maybe not. Watch the actual video, which provides context missed by the screengrab:

https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1038024407258673153

She’s chatting with someone next to her and also seems to be communicating on her phone, possibly with her husband, and literally begins to mouth the word “okay” in reply before giving the “okay” signal. It’s over in a flash, clearly something she did absentmindedly without recognizing that that’s the same, ahem, “white power” gesture that the left went nuts over on Tuesday. Poor woman.

The funny thing about it is that there are left- *and* right-wing misinterpretations floating around on Twitter today. You know the left-wing theory: Lightning doesn’t strike twice. After days of public scrutiny, the only reason Bash would flash the “okay” signal again is because, uh, well … all right, maybe she did it to signal “okay” but she also might have done it to signal “white power.” It can’t be an accident! And the right-wing theory agrees. It’s no accident. She’s trolling her critics! (Which would actually be truer to the origins of this idiocy than a racist motive would.) She did it deliberately to own the libs.

It’d be pretty sad if that were true:

I truly believe this was unintentional / unthinking. But so many serious people on the Right are praising this as an amazing troll that it makes it easier to understand how we ended up with a movement that focuses so much on triggering the Left. https://t.co/YrfYbouuFb

— Sarah Quinlan (@sarahmquinlan) September 7, 2018

Which brings me to my last point… praising this as an amazing troll then seems to make the argument it’s good to use white power symbols (which empowers that movement!) as long as it’s done to troll the Left.

— Sarah Quinlan (@sarahmquinlan) September 7, 2018

Whenever you’re tempted to embrace outre trolling, remember the Rule of Goats.

One more point about Bash’s intentions: She has every credential one would want or need to rise very high in Washington, and no doubt she’s keenly aware of it. She has a law degree (and a bachelor’s) from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton; she’s worked for the Trump White House and for both Ted Cruz and John Cornyn; she’s not just a friend of Kavanaugh’s, she’s a former clerk. All of these things make her very well positioned, even likely, to be nominated for an important job somewhere someday, whether on the bench, at the DOJ, or in the White House. None of that is to say that she can’t possibly hold offensive views, but it does strongly imply that there’s way too much at stake for her professionally to do something like this deliberately, on national television, seated in-frame behind a soon-to-be Supreme Court justice, even as a goof or a troll. You don’t get two postgrad degrees, clerk for a “feeder judge,” and spend your career working for politicians because you’re looking for the perfect opportunity to self-immolate on TV for lulz.