Brett Kavanaugh is a Supreme Court Justice. What Does This Mean and What Comes Next (Photo/David King via Flickr)
On Saturday morning, the US Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. But from the beginning, and at every turn, this confirmation process has been botched, mishandled and deliberately gerrymandered.
This has been a disgrace.
So when Jeff Flake called for an FBI inquiry into this case, many, including myself, breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, I found myself thinking, we can get to the bottom of this. We can have the truth, or at the very least some clarity.
But this quasi-investigation did nothing of the sort. It was all for show.
For it’s clear that the FBI did not interview or investigate key figures who could have shed light on Christine Ford’s allegations. What’s far more troubling is that this wasn’t the FBI’s fault. This failure to duly investigate is because the White House arbitrarily limited—and actually impeded—the FBI’s efforts.
After Suzanne Collins cast her initial vote on Friday, she said, “This is not a criminal trial, and I do not believe that claims such as these need to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, fairness would dictate that the claims at least should meet a threshold of more likely than not as our standard.”
I agree because situations like this are seldom conclusively proven. But it’s quite difficult for claims to meet even a “threshold” if they aren’t investigated properly, and if there aren’t any established facts. Since the FBI couldn’t conduct a thorough process, it turned up nothing we didn’t already know, leaving everyone in the dark as before.
This begs the question: why was the investigation limited? Midterms aren’t for a month, so why did Republicans object to a two-week or even three-week intensive investigation? If Kavanaugh is truly innocent, they should have nothing to fear. And if he isn’t, then the case is closed.
But the reality is that this was never about the truth. This was about unadulterated partisan politics. The second that Ford’s allegations surfaced, Republicans and Democrats rushed to believe either Ford or Kavanaugh, without any actual justification. Throughout the whole affair, both sides did nothing but use the allegations as rationalization for their own views on the judge.
So even if some sort of evidence had surfaced, regardless of where it pointed, not a single vote would have changed. Like almost everyone in the country, it seems, the senators’ minds were already made up.
Even more recently, opponents of Kavanaugh began pointing to the way he conducted himself before the Judiciary Committee as grounds for his removal from consideration. But after 14 years of commendable jurisprudence, emotion and temperament are not enough to bar Kavanaugh from the court outright. To be sure, his overtly partisan rhetoric and immature retorts were deeply disturbing and unbecoming of a prospective justice. And while emotion in one hearing is a valid reason for disliking Kavanaugh, it’s an incredibly flimsy reason for voting no.
The crux of the issue here is this: contrary to what’s being said, neither side here is evil nor objectively in the wrong. Though they loused up, the Democrats didn’t embark on a subversive campaign to slander an unquestionably good man and bar him from the court, as some have suggested. And though they, too, made many errors, the Republicans didn’t consciously tell women they don’t matter or intentionally trod over facts to put a rapist on the court, as others have insisted.
But because they were so blinded by their own prejudices and so willing to manipulate the process to achieve their desired outcome, it certainly seemed like it.
Still, neither side acted with deliberate malice. Neither Democrats nor Republicans tried to create the utter mess that ensued. They simply did what our ideologically entrenched politicians are groomed to do-rationalize evidence and purport testimonies to fit a political agenda.
Therefore, we can’t claim that a yes or no vote was the definitively right or wrong thing to do. There were no concrete facts, so the decision became entirely subjective. It came down to who—Ford or Kavanaugh—was more “credible,” or how “fit” Kavanaugh is for the bench. And though I have my own assessment of whom I found more credible and how fit he is, someone with different biases and a different desired outcome would have made a different decision.
A no vote was certainly justifiable. But so was a yes.
With all said and done, Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court. Millions are voicing legitimate reasons regarding why he shouldn’t be. But at the same time, millions more have equally legitimate reasoning for why he should. And this time around, the latter won the day. That’s how a democracy works.
But what’s next? After a month of nothing but repulsive rhetoric, where do we go from here?
Well, for one thing, we ought to step back and realize that the sky is not in fact falling.
Progressives have warned that a conservative majority places Supreme Court decisions like Roe vs. Wade, Obergefell vs. Hodges, et al. in immediate jeopardy. While this concern is by no means unfounded, it has been blown out of proportion.
Regardless of its political leanings, every judicial body must abide by precedent. The now conservative Supreme Court couldn’t overturn such rulings in the short term, even if it wanted to. And even if it were to be struck down twenty years from now, such reversals would not be final, for it would be up to each state’s supreme court to decide on the issues for itself.
Kavanaugh’s appointment is incredibly controversial, and many may understandably detest him and disagree with his policies. But time and again, he has proven himself—on the whole—to be a studious legal scholar and a wise adherent to the Constitution and to jurisprudence. The circumstances of his nomination are incredibly questionable, so having him on the Supreme Court might diminish its ethical credibility.
Though his confirmation process was suspect, and there are questions about his character, Brett Kavanaugh has proven himself to be an objectively wise jurist. This will not destroy the nation.
But even more importantly, we have to begin to seek the facts and check our biases. The senate judiciary committee demonstrated what happens when political motivations and personal convictions go unchecked. It is shameful when prejudices prevent us from basic decency.
But if we don’t withhold judgement until we have the facts, if we don’t respect legal protocol, if we don’t grant accuser and accused the right to their good names, and if we convince ourselves that people voting against our preferred outcome are unforgivably power-hungry and poised to ruin the country, then our politics are going to get a whole lot uglier.
