Sunday 20 September 2020

Of Course

No one has been "shocked", nor has anything been "rocked", by the death of an 87-year-old who had pancreatic cancer. Such a death is about as surprising as the news that one of the most seasoned political operators on earth is a flagrant opportunist and a rampaging hypocrite.

Donald Trump may or may not have been informed, but of course the Republican Party of Mitch McConnell will have had someone lined up for years to fill the seat that at some point was always going to have to be vacated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We are about to find out who that has been. Probably, so is Trump.

Note well the case of Brett Kavanaugh. He was unknown to the pro-life movement, which had submitted the names of dozens of potential nominees, all of which were rejected by a President who had previously been a major donor to Planned Parenthood. Republican Senators voted to confirm Kavanaugh after he had promised Susan Collins that he would uphold Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, and Obergefell v. Hodges. They gave Collins's speech a standing ovation, and Kavanaugh has been as good as his word.

Thus did the Republicans secure a Justice with the most egregious record on torture, Guantánamo Bay, mass surveillance, workers' rights, consumer protection, environmental responsibility, treaties with Native Americans tribes, and healthcare for people with preexisting conditions. On any one of those issues, Kavanaugh could have been blocked, with all Democrats and enough Republicans voting against him. But the Democrats chose to make it about #MeToo instead. 

The confirmation of Kavanaugh will be the only lasting legacy of the #MeToo phenomenon, unless this is all played out again around the next nomination. But that is another story. Or at any rate, it is a different chapter in the story of the baleful decline of both main political parties in the United States. Neither of them deserves a free pass. Or very much else at all.

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