Brett Kavanaugh is not particularly sound on abortion. I mean, he beats every Republican Presidential nominee out of the park, but that is saying almost nothing. Donald Trump could have picked equally qualified candidates who were dyed-in-the-wool pro-lifers, but he chose not to do so.
In any case, abortion has not been a major electoral issue in the United States this century, if it ever really was; it never stopped people from campaigning and voting for Reagan (who had legalised abortion in California), for the Bushes, for Dole, for McCain, for Romney (who had not only legalised public funding of abortion in Massachusetts, but who derived an income from that funding) or for Trump.
And no legislation restricting abortion was ever going to make its way before the Supreme Court, anyway, because the Republicans never attempt to enact any such legislation. They know which false promise keeps a declining section of their base onside, and before long, when that section is no longer large enough to be worth the effort, they will simply stop making the promise.
But Brett Kavanaugh is not particularly sound on abortion. I mean, he beats every Republican Presidential nominee out of the park, but that is saying almost nothing. Donald Trump could have picked equally qualified candidates who were dyed-in-the-wool pro-lifers, but he chose not to do so.
Why? Well, in addition to the views on torture, Guantánamo Bay and mass surveillance that ought to have disqualified him in the eyes of paleoconservatives, Kavanaugh thinks that you cannot be indicted in a state court for an offence of which you have already been acquitted in a federal court, and he thinks that the President can pardon himself. All in all, he suits Donald Trump down to the ground.
And Trump has little or no real connection to the Republican Party. He barely needed it in order to become President in 2016, and he would need it even less in order to remain President in 2020. It makes no difference to him that its confirmation of this temperamentally unsuited man with serious alcohol and attitude problems will consign everyone else in that party to electoral oblivion for 30 or 40 years.
And Trump has little or no real connection to the Republican Party. He barely needed it in order to become President in 2016, and he would need it even less in order to remain President in 2020. It makes no difference to him that its confirmation of this temperamentally unsuited man with serious alcohol and attitude problems will consign everyone else in that party to electoral oblivion for 30 or 40 years.
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