The default Trumpist Republican positions (can’t think of a better word) are 1) We’re entitled to take what we want and we’re mean enough to do it; and 2) The ends always justifies the means. Understanding this makes their choices far more predictable.
I suspect this second shoe dropping will be the predicate event for Republicans to withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination, accompanied by butt-hurt howling about how victimized they have been, how the Deep State™ has won another round and yada yada yada.
The next nominee – which will be rammed through during the lame duck session after the mid-terms at the latest – will be even worse. I predict it will be a woman. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will pretend she isn’t actually anti-choice because “settled law.” Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and Ben Sasse will fatuously congratulate their colleagues on their “compromise” woman candidate.
And irony of ironies, John Roberts becomes the “swing” vote on his own shitty court. Possibly the last justice who will give two damns about its legacy which, if the quality of the nominees is any indication, is going to be a very piss poor one.
On the plus side, the Trumpist Republicans are pissing off huge hunks of the electorate, making them that much more likely to vote.
At the same time, more moderate Republicans are looking at this show, and it’s probably peeling off some of them as voters - either they’ll hold their noses and vote Democrat, or they won’t vote at all.
Another thought - does it seem to anyone else lately how bizarre it is, that Republicans have been acting like the worst leftist caricature of the greedy, cruel, mysoginistic bully, in real life. I mean, this show, diverting funds from children’s cancer treatment to detaining children*…. it’s unreal.
*Yep, this administration is literally stealing money from sick kids to fund kidnapping other kids.
Yup. Comes as no surprise. What also comes as no surprise is that it appears Republicans on the committee were aware of these other cases, and their response was to try and hasten the Ford testimony so they could… eehhhrrrrmmmm… ram the nomination through.
Pity. I was kind of hoping they’d succeed, so we could have the Supreme Court seat back once Kavanaugh had been impeached by all this evidence, revealed once Dems control the House and Senate.
On the road to authoritarianism, try not to lose your sense of outrage.
Paul Krugman, 9/21: A thought: the Kavanaugh mess has structural roots. Rs needed someone who was both ideologically reliable and at no risk of developing a conscience when it came to defending Trump against rule of law. So it had to be a bad person, which meant good odds of nasty stuff surfacing https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1043199669688512513
I’m reminded of the sort of threats that Cohen made to those who crossed Trump: [INDENT]“I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?” [/INDENT] Dr. Ford knew what she’s was getting into when she wrote her Senator. The country owes her our thanks.
I’m guessing the nominee will be closer to Scalia than Kavanaugh would be. But worse? I’m guessing not. Because Kavanaugh appears to be fucking disgusting.
I just had the realization that the schadenfreude I was feeling meant that 3 women, and likely many more, had terrible things happen to them. Fuck Kavanaugh. I hope law enforcement does investigate after all of this comes out. If the reports are accurate, he belongs in jail and not on the bench.
It’s Infrastructure Week! Everyone get out your popcorn.
(I made this joke last night to a friend and neither of us could recall which of the many scandals made this a joke in the first place. That’s how fucked up all this is.)
I’d say, “Buh-bye, asswipe” but unless Kavanaugh withdraws or it is clear he can’t get fifty votes in the Senate I bet the nomination still goes up to a vote.
Here’s something else to watch. “The Biggest Divides On The Kavanaugh Allegations Are By Party — Not Gender” [INDENT] Maybe that’s not too surprising when it comes to Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were in high school. A HuffPost/YouGov poll released last week found that 34 percent of men did not find Ford’s allegation credible, compared with 23 percent of women. Yet 60 percent of Republicans did not think her allegation was credible, compared with 8 percent of Democrats. [/INDENT] I presume that poll was done before other witnesses came forward about Kavanaugh’s various alleged assaults.
Rough numbers:
Figure 1 in 3 women have suffered something like this. That’s 1/6 of the electorate. Half are Republican or Republican leaning, so that makes 1/12. So we’re discussing a maximum 8.3% swing, in practice much lower.
Of course others can also be angry or sickened, but that group trends Democratic. At any rate, Kavanaugh’s support among Republicans won’t necessarily shift dramatically with the latest developments, though I believe the needle will move.