People rally for and against Kavanaugh outside of Sen. Jeff Flake’s Phoenix office.
Dozens of protesters lined the street outside of Sen. Jeff Flake’s Phoenix office on Saturday pleading for a no vote on the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
The protesters and Kavanaugh supporters alike held signs and chanted on the sidewalk of Camelback Road and 22nd Street just hours before the Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice.
The final vote was 50-48. Flake voted in favor of Kavanaugh.
“For women to be treated like this, for people to be treated like this, there needs to be a change,” said Khloe Kenyon, an anti-Kavanaugh protester.
“I’m angry and hearing everyone drive by honking makes me really emotional and glad that there’s people out there. I’m glad that there’s this community that can come together,” Kenyon said.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation was not just a chance for Republicans to shift the court to the right for what could be decades.
It was also a test of how public officials responded to the raw emotions unleashed by the #MeToo movement amid accusations from Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were teens. He said the incident never happened.
Among the anti-Kavanaugh protesters, Christopher Hanlon, held his sign high for passing cars to see.
“I want to be counted among the people in the country that object to the trivializing of women’s pain and the misogyny that so many women endure including assault and harassment,” Hanlon said.
Hanlon, whose sign was very critical of Flake said he made the sign a year ago and it has been “endlessly relevant” all year.
“He’s a senator who doesn’t seem to have a moral vision of his own. He’s shown us this week that he seems deeply confused, glum-faced, morose, and unable to act with bravery,” Hanlon said.
Just up the street, the Kavanaugh supporters, many wearing MAGA hats and sporting large Trump flags, waved their flags chanting back at the other protesters thanking Flake for his future vote.
“Thank you for doing the right thing, in fact, thank you for calling the FBI investigation,” Lesa Anton, a member of the Patriot Movement said about Flake.
As Kavanaugh’s vote neared, frustrations from the anti-Kavanaugh protesters were apparent.
“This is a travesty, I am heartbroken about what’s happened to our nation,” said Joyce Valenzano, an anti-Kavanaugh protester. “What’s happening is an abomination.”
“It has to stop, they’re undoing all the progress from the last 50 years and it’s been hard-won progress and just because they don’t like it, they think they have the right to change it and they don’t,” Valenzano said.
Valenzano said that she felt empowered being at the protest despite being angry about the vote and general political climate.
“I’ve been feeling very angry for a couple of years and at least this gives me a place to be proactive, to do something positive with that energy because I don’t like being angry, and I’m angry because I’m heartbroken.”
Cars honked as they passed, some in support of the anti-Kavanaugh protesters and others for the Kavanaugh supporters. The supporters loudly voiced their support of Trump and Kavanaugh with bullhorns and heated debates with the anti-Kavanaugh protesters.
“We are out here today to celebrate a victory for truth and justice and stand up for the presumption of innocence, “Anton yelled over competing chants.
The attitude from the Kavanaugh protesters toward the Kavanaugh supporters was that of verbal hostility but physical restraint.
Many from both of the sides would yell obscenities at each other in frustration as Phoenix police officers stood among the crowd to keep the peace.
“They’re idiots,” Kristine Beane said about the anti-Kavanaugh protesters. “They do not either see the truth or they don’t want to know the truth, I don’t know which it is. If they don’t see it, I feel really bad for them, but if they do see it and they just don’t care, they deserve anything they’re getting today.”
Across the street, Judith Danvers, an anti-Kavanaugh protester, who was recently arrested after a sit-in at Flake’s office earlier in the week, was joined by other protesters.
Danvers who was arrested Thursday and released Friday said she was not allowed to be on the same street as Flake’s office but didn’t want to miss the protest.
“We’re fighting for our children,” Danvers said. “It’s for their generation, so they won’t have to do what I’m doing. This is ridiculous, we have to keep fighting and let our voices be heard.”
Just behind her, a man walked up yelling obscenities repeatedly across the street while demonstrating lewd acts at the protesters.
Danvers and a woman dressed in all red as a handmaid shrugged it off.
Danvers who refused to stop protesting said she wants to respectfully obey the law but also continue to voice her opinion.
“I’m still alive, I’m still kicking and I’m still pissed.”