The anticlimactic deed is done; Kavanaugh confirmed for the US Supreme Court, replacing Justice Kennedy, the conservative, occasional swing vote.
The ultimate Republican objective, total control of the federal government, has been achieved. The presidency, the congress, and the court; the latter not just until the next election, but for at least the next generation, are controlled by the hard right wing of the Republicans. The best the Democrats can realistically hope for is to gain control of the House in 2018. Even that, due to gerrymandering, will take far more than 50 percent majority Democratic votes nationally to win the House.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made no secret of it. His objective was to do whatever necessary to make Obama a one-term president and put the US Supreme Court totally in conservative hands. While he didn’t limit Obama to one term, he succeeded in making the Supreme Court reliably conservative for the foreseeable future. Citizens United —money is speech — gutting the Voting Rights Act, and approval of gerrymandering, are here to stay.
Trump promised to nominate only candidates who opposed Roe vs. Wade. That decision legalizing women’s choice does not have to be overtly overturned to gut it. The court can simply uphold rights of states to chip away at it.
McConnell and Trump supporters clearly realized that the election of 2016 was about future control of the Supreme Court. In contrast, Ivy League educated Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, completely dropped the ball, failing to pound home to rank and file Democrats the consequences for the court of a Trump victory.
The untimely death of Justice Scalia should have reminded Democrats of the crucial importance of the Court. But if it did, Democrats seldom mentioned it during the campaign of 2016. Even McConnell’s unethical refusal to hold hearings on Obama’s centrist nominee did not wake Democrats up to the impending disaster should Trump win the election.
McConnell took a risk, although not a big one, in refusing for an entire year to hold hearings on Obama’s centrist nominee. In theory, if the Dems won the presidency and took the Senate, they might have jammed a young firebrand liberal down Republicans’ throats. But this scenario was only theoretical, and highly unlikely in practice. Even if Hillary had won the presidency, without controlling the Senate by a 60-40 majority, the Democrats would have been constrained to a more acceptable centrist. Even with that, Republicans had vowed that if Hillary won, and they held the Senate, they would not approve any of Hillary’s nominees for her entire term.
The worst of all scenarios for the Democrats occurred. Trump won the election and Republicans retained control of the Senate. Trump appointed a hard-right conservative to replace the conservative Scalia. And with resignation of Justice Kennedy, the conservative and occasional swing vote, Trump nominates a hard-right reliable conservative to replace him. Although the Republicans had less than the 60-40 majority previously required for confirmation of court justices, they quickly changed the rules to allow confirmation with a single vote majority.
However unethical McConnell’s year-long refusal to hold hearings on Obama’s centrist nominee, his gamble paid off with two hard-right Republican justices that will be there for a long time.
The case against Kavanaugh was strong from the outset, beginning with the thousands of pages of records not released. He dissembled, if not outright lied, over his discussions of controversial issues, including torture, during the Bush administration. That, along with his support of unconstrained presidential power, should have disqualified him for the Court. Judicial Committee Chair Grassley’s rush to confirm Kavanaugh was clearly designed to obfuscate Kavanaugh’s history as a right-wing partisan.
Then came the accusations of Kavanaugh’s past behavior and Dr. Ford’s testimony. Not wanting to repeat the errors and horrible optics of the 1993 Thomas hearings, appearing to be tough on a woman clearly having suffered sexual abuse, Republicans hired a prosecutor to cross-examine Dr. Ford. This was followed by a sham FBI investigation, clearly designed to provide political cover for affirmative votes. To add insult to injury, Senator Grassley and Kavanaugh’s supporters accused Democrats of trivia, of trashing Kavanaugh for “having a couple of beers during college.” Questioning of Kavanaugh was not about “having a couple beers.” It was about a pattern of alleged bad behavior while habitually drinking to excess.
Most distressing of this entire saga was the President’s public ridicule of Dr. Ford, using her clearly evident distress to score political points. Equally distressing was the roar of approval by Trump’s supporters. Such demagogic behavior is not justified under any circumstances, especially by an American president. A true leader brings out the best qualities in people. A demagogue taps into the darker side of human nature for personal gain.
If there were previously any doubt, it should now be clear that men and women are held to different standards. If Dr. Ford had so much as raised her voice during her compelling testimony, she would have been portrayed by Republicans, no doubt with the help of the media, as a screaming meemies, “too emotional.”
Yet as Kavanaugh went into a rage while interviewing for the high position for which justices are supposed to be unflappable, he was praised for his angry, partisan response. His disrespect for senators and his explicit threat to seek revenge should have disqualified him for the Supreme Court on the grounds of temperament, if nothing else.
Senator Susan Collins, held to be a possible dissenting vote, has long fooled the electronic media nitwits into casting her as the “moderate” that she never was. Her earlier dissenting vote on eliminating Obamacare was only because so many of her constituents convinced her how they benefitted from the ACA and insisted that she vote to retain it.
Democratic voters, including younger ones and pro-choice advocates who found Hillary “too uninspiring” to be worthy of their vote will pay a steep price for their apathy.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Saturdays in the Monroe Times.
