The Kavanaugh war
Rejuvenated GOP rediscovers unity Trump’s poison infects the Supreme Court
On the Senate floor, Susan Collins stood alone. And she stood tall. The Maine Republican’s floor speech announcing her vote for Brett Kavanaugh systematically dismantled every Democratic attack on the new Supreme Court justice and made a convincing case in favor of President Donald Trump’s highly qualified nominee.
If you see a commentator claiming to be a “Republican” or “conservative” strategist supporting the liberal mob on this one, understand that they don’t represent conservatives or the Republican Party any longer. More than any other issue in the Trump era, Kavanaugh will be remembered as the “whose side are you on?” moment.
And it was the “moderate” or establishment wing of the GOP that manned the front lines. Aside from Collins:
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a conservative target for being pro-immigration reform, rallied the faithful in his rousing committee speech.
Chuck Grassley, whom some conservatives wanted to dethrone as Judiciary Committee chairman in 2016, managed the process beautifully despite the unprecedented circus thrust upon his committee.
Former President George W. Bush offered an assist, lobbing in calls to Collins and other Senate Republicans to reassure them about Kavanaugh.
Then there’s “Cocaine Mitch” McConnell, so smeared by a losing Senate candidate whom he opposed in West Virginia. McConnell’s steely leadership in a Senate that stands on a razor’s edge has erased any possibility that a Republican could ever again credibly challenge his conservative bona fides. He has simultaneously fought the dumbest elements of the Tea Party and the Democratic Party for going on eight years, and he has bested both.
Even though the mob was beaten back this time, it will return more rageful and bloodthirsty than ever. Democrats will make Trump and Kavanaugh an impeachment double feature should they win the House. Democrats may plunge the nation into any number of constitutional crises to satisfy a liberal base that has never accepted that elections have consequences. Their Trump-era overreaches have been muted because they are the minority party in Congress. Put them in charge, and there’s nothing stopping liberal Democrats from using their power to destroy any American that stands between them and their political goals.
The narrowly won 50-48 Kavanaugh fight has injected energy and camaraderie into a GOP suffering from complacency and discord. Rejuvenated conservatives have been reminded about what’s at stake, and to what depraved depths the liberal mob will sink to win.
Scott Jennings, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and former campaign adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is a partner with RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky.
The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, after a bitter fortnight of operatic intensity, is the most damaging blow to the Supreme Court since it decided a presidential election with Bush v. Gore, and the most serious assault on the court by another branch of government since at least Franklin D. Roosevelt’s court-packing plan. Now what?
The episode was a vivid display of a broken process driven by power politics. Senate Republicans employed a razor-thin majority to game the system at every turn. Once Christine Blasey Ford emerged to credibly accuse Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teens, Republicans excluded important witnesses and turned a final hearing into a “he said, she said” standoff.
Among the indelible images of that standoff were 11 sclerotic Republican males hiding behind a handpicked prosecutor as she served up picayune questions to Ford, and Kavanaugh’s face as he unleashed a torrent of bared-teeth partisanship. Kavanaugh went all in on contempt, grievance and dishonesty — in short, the politics of President Donald Trump. The nadir came when the White House feigned a reopened investigation only to ensure it went nowhere.
Where does all this leave Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court? Polls show more Americans believe Ford. The stigma might remain as long as he serves.
Kavanaugh’s public appearances will attract protests and controversy. He will continue to be reviled in the legal academy and in much of the profession. And should damning new details of his conduct or the nomination process come to light, the political outrage at his confirmation will redouble.
Within the court itself, Kavanaugh will have an easier time. The justices place enormous value on collegiality. He is now their new brother, flaws and all, and whatever private opinions they may harbor, the justices will set them aside and bring him into the fold.
The tragedy of Kavanaugh’s sordid confirmation is its effect on the court. Its public credibility is everything; in a sense, it is all the court has. The American people accept the highest court’s decisions to the extent they believe them the product of law, not politics.
Between Kavanaugh’s archpartisan turn to gain confirmation and the raw political process that won it for him, the court’s legitimacy will be sorely challenged. Now, every 5-4 decision in which Kavanaugh joins, and there will be a cascade of them, will seem to many more Americans illegitimate. Given the extreme bitterness of the confirmation, it is hard to see this changing soon.
Trump has managed to insert himself, and his brand of malice, into the most important institution in American government that he had not yet soiled. Now his poison has infected the Supreme Court, and its venomous effects will persist long after his presidency.
Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, teaches at UCLA Law School.