Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:48 pm
Coming to a Senate hearing room near you, Act II in the transition of the Supreme Court to merely a bit player in the Trump Reality Show.
Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination reflects a broken confirmation process where the bulk of his background is effectively under seal, and the emphasis was on p.r. instead of his character and his views about the law.
This nomination began with one huge problem, in the opinion of Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, Kavanaugh has a long paper trail.
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The White House solved McConnell’s dilemma by hiding Kavanaugh’s record from Democratic Senate members and the general public.
Sure, there was a volumous document dump on the eve of Kavanaugh’s first appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but it was also miniscule compared to the available documents.
Still, it’s worth remembering Chuck Grassley’s contradictory reactions to the document dump. Here’s what he said in immediate response:
“Not a single senator will be able to review these records before tomorrow. â€
But hours later, Grassley said:
“The Majority staff has now completed its review of each and every one of these pages.â€
Another problem with the Kavanaugh nomination, Americans don’t like him. Poll data shows a steady decline in support for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, as people learn more about him. The most recent poll shows an 18% drop in support by Republican women.
The solution?
Ads that look like something from a political campaign paid for by hard right groups like the Judicial Crisis Network and the NRA.
Given Kavanaugh’s demonstrated hostility to women’s rights especially reproductive rights, there were ads with women swearing he never saw women as less than equal.
The girls basketball team he coaches were paraded before the committee like props, the day Kavanaugh testified.
It’s as if Republicans thought this shiny object would blind us to the misogyny that makes it possible for Mitch McConnell to describe a successful woman like Rachel Mitchell as a “female assistant†or for Orrin Hatch to suggest that either the complaints are “phony†or if true, the woman making a complaint of attempted acquaintance rape, as is the case with Blasey Ford’s complaint, is “mixed up†or “confused.â€
There’s so much riding on this nomination, beginning with the people who keep America running, who do the work that make those corporate profits possible, who serve and clean up after people like the Trumps.
If confirmed, Kavanaugh will further weaken our rights to: oppose the government, to vote, to make our own family planning decisions, to attend Yale while black.
For Republicans, a failed Kavanaugh nomination will further weaken Republican candidates in the mid-terms. The most devoted Trump supporters are likely to stay home as increasing numbers of college educated white women abandon the party of misogynists and handmaidens.
Democrats can taste the day that Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker again and becomes the third in the line of succession. Pelosi will also stand out as the only person in that line who has proven both capable of governing and of understanding that governing for all the people includes women, people of color, immigrants, LGBT, regardless of income, occupation, religious or political belief.
With all this on the line, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from two witnesses: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and from Trump’s nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
The Republican majority, comprised exclusively of white men, hired Rachel Mitchell to question Dr. Ford because she is less likely to say something misogynistic, dismissive or disrespectful as they are.
Chairman Grassley banned the inclusion of expert testimony on the trauma that goes with being the victim of a sex crime. He refused to allow witnesses who can corroborate Dr. Blasey Ford’s account of her story. He refused to allow testimony from Deborah Ramirez. He limited questioning by the Senators who take their responsibilities seriously to a single five minutes per Senator round.
As we already know from nearly two years of a Donald Trump presidency, he believes his presidency is just another sequel of his reality show. He also believes that he is the star while Congress and the Supreme Court are merely bit players.
Maybe Jeff Flake will vote Kavanaugh’s nomination down on Friday – the day following a hearing designed to bury the truth – just like the White House buried most of Kavanaugh’s paper trail.
Dr. Ford is still going to tell her story to a committee whose minds are likely made up.
She withstood death threats, doxing, harassment, slanderous tweets by the president and everything else the holders of male privilege could throw at her.
She will still be there to state it was Brett Kavanaugh who put his hand over her mouth, and tried to rape her. She knew it was him because she knew Kavanaugh and the man that Republicans tried to portray as the “real†sex offender.
Dr. Ford has already proved that she has more courage than any of the Republican men on the Senate Judiciary committee.
In the effort to “plow†Kavanaugh’s nomination through the Senate Judiciary committee, Dr. Ford will show everyone there how a patriot behaves.
Then, less than 24 hours after the testimony, regardless of what is said, regardless of the many questions that will go unanswered, regardless of the lack of any serious follow up investigation, they’ll vote on the nomination of a man who could decide on the existence and strength of our rights for decades.
It’s important to remember this is a job interview for a seat on the highest court. It is not a trial and the Republican effort to put Dr. Ford on trial doesn’t change that fact.
It does, however, offer a chilling revelation of powerful Republicans who long for the days when men accused of sex crimes could be acquitted because his victim wears short skirts, has a brain or leaves the house without a male escort.
The great tragedy however, is that this process reduced the once mighty Supreme Court – the final arbiter and protector of our rights to a mere bit player in the Trump reality show.
Former contributor.
