Don’t let growing, toxic American political culture seep north

Kavanagh hearings offer a look at an unpleasant new political reality

We Canadians are bruised and battered after watching with shock the machinations in Washington around the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States, a lifetime appointment.

We watched, some of us for hours, since we really do seek to know what is going on in the world, as the Senate Judiciary Committee approved by the slimmest of margins his nomination, and it went on to the full Senate for endorsement.

All that, in spite of the searing and sincere testimony of Prof. Christine Blasey-Ford of Palo Alto University in California about her recollection of being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh when they were in high school in the 1980s.

Then there was his whingeing defence of himself, his overweening sense of entitlement and his extreme partisanship, all of which undermine any claim of his to being impartial once on the bench.

His nomination was opposed by the American Bar Association, by 2,000 law professors, by Yale’s former president, by the Jesuit magazine America, and by the largest coalition of American churches ever assembled.

But no, those elderly, mostly white, men and one woman, many of whom were around to dismiss Anita Hill’s similar testimony against Justice Clarence Thomas 27 years ago, forged on to guarantee another extreme right-wing voice on the court. It was the triumph of patriarchy again in America.

In an interesting twist, people on Facebook were circulating an insightful quote from Elon Musk’s first wife, Justine Taylor Musk, who was born in 1972 in Peterborough! Musk, a novelist said: “The enemy of feminism isn’t men, it is patriarchy. Patriarchy is not men, it’s a system. Women can support the system of patriarchy just as men can support the fight for gender equality.”

That’s certainly what I have experienced.

So toxic is the atmosphere in American politics today, fostered by a demonic president who knows no truth, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, a sharp observer, just wrote, “I fear that Hillary Clinton’s defeat in November, 2016 and the arrival of the fanatical Trump mark the true end of the American Empire.” Chretien was writing in his new book My Stories, My Time.

Writing the book, he says, has helped him recover his serenity, when he got too tired of observing the “surrealist vagaries of Pres. Trump and listening to his nonsense.

“It has been very sad to observe the monumental error our neighbours to the south made in November 2016. We have much better institutions but we must not backslide when it comes to social values.”

For me, regaining my serenity has taken me to even deeper meditation and then to activism on behalf of women as I go about telling groups in my community about my G7 experience on the Gender Equality Advisory

“I watched the president of the United States use the massive power of his office to vilify a private citizen. It was a chilling sight.” PARKER PALMER

Council. I’ve taken heart by looking at the TIME magazine cover of Oct. 5 showing Blasey Ford’s face and hair covered with her words. I tried to reach her with a message of support, but so threatening are her critics, her email has been erased and she has not even returned to her home.

I’ve also taken heart from reading the great Quaker thinker in Philadelphia, Parker Palmer, who writes, “I watched the president of the United States use the massive power of his office to vilify a private citizen. It was a chilling sight. I could not shake off images of the Roman Coliseum, where mobs relished blood sport while a Mad Emperor egged them on. It should have been an impeachable offense, but in these twisted times, it’s a ploy to grab headlines and mobilize the base.”

The Atlantic magazine examined the cruelty that it saw. “Trump and supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear. Malice has been made a virtue.” And the court, the editors said, is headed back to the 19th century.

One grabs on to such progressive American voices. Then one redoubles efforts to be fair, civil, non-violent and inclusive. To be human.