By Any Means Necessary

The attempted borking of Judge Kavanaugh proceeds apace, with his accuser set to testify on Thursday. Kavanaugh, a man of impeccable credentials and heretofore unassailed character, is being accused of an attempted rape nearly four decades ago, when he was 17, and of indecently exposing himself when in college. He has denied both accusations in plain and non-lawyerly language.

Based on what I’ve read to date, both accusations stand on flimsy ground – the former on a “recovered memory” 30 years after the fact, and the other on a piecemeal recollection of seeing something and hearing someone say something about it. Even so, they shouldn’t be immediately dismissed, and some degree of investigation is warranted.

The bigger issue is the handling of this matter by the opposition party, which sat on the first allegation for MONTHS, apparently with the intent of inciting the very chaos and last-minute uncertainty we are witnessing, in a presumable effort to prevent Kavanaugh’s confirmation prior to the mid-terms.

This corruption of the process serves the Democrats in several ways. First, it keeps Kavanaugh, who appears, ideologically, to stand to the right of Kennedy, from sitting on the Court’s first cases when it begins its session on October 1, leaving an ideological 4-4 split to hear those cases. Second, it gives the Dems a glimmer of hope, should they overcome the numbers disadvantage (they have 25 seats in play vs the GOP’s 8) and win the Senate, to take control of the Court confirmation process, and either force Trump to give them a compromise jurist or keep the Court at 4-4 until the 2020 election. Third, it feeds their rabid base, which still grossly resents the fact that Clinton lost the Presidency to Trump, and which still lusts for political power by any means necessary.

Dissatisfied with having to re-win elections they lost by the thousand over the past 8 years, they’re content with wrecking the system (and destroying a man’s reputation and career) in order to gain control of our (already terribly dysfunctional) government.

To what end?

Many, myself included, lament the Republicans’ fecklessness when it comes to addressing the difficult matters: runaway spending, unfunded entitlements, ballooning deficits and growing debt. Some want the Democrats back in power because of this fecklessness, perhaps with some notion that the tax cuts were a bad idea due to the lack of spending restraint, or perhaps with some notion that flushing out this pack of GOPers will allow a proper set of conservatives to win elections when the pendulum next swings.

But, seriously, these Democrats? These angry, soul-less, power-mad, scorched-earth types, and the young, foolish naifs who have chugged the farcical “democratic socialism” Kool-aid? What do you think they’re going to do once in office? Indeed, they want to raise taxes. Yes, they promise to raise them on other people, not you, and you might even believe that. But, what exactly do you think they’re going to do with whatever extra tax revenue they manage to squeeze out of an economy that’ll sink back to sluggishness under a reinstated burden? Deficit reduction?

Please.

They’re going to spend every red cent, and mountains more, on giveaways. To think that there’s anyone in the Democratic Party who would seek to be more fiscally responsible than the current crop of Republicans is laughable.

Worse, Democratic success in this Kavanaugh business will validate a horrific precedent. Already, people in public service are facing personal intimidation and threat of physical harm. Already, the mob is taking scalps as it destroys the fabric of civil society. Rewarding these thug tactics will not get party loyalists what they hope.

Politics has always been a dirty business, and it always will be, but that doesn’t mean we have to simply accept all this, even if it furthers our own partisan ends. It’s easy to forget, especially with the depersonalization fostered by social media, that the people being assailed are human beings. It’s also terribly perilous to confirm and reward dirty tactics, since all it does is encourage even dirtier tactics. If you lose an election, just take your lumps and work to win the next one, instead of supporting the sort of partisan horror we’ve witnessed. The latter simply guarantees that it’ll be done to your side if things swing back your way.

Senator Joe McCarthy, whose communist witch hunts claimed many innocent scalps (yes, he bagged a number of actual commies, but he scorched countless acres in the process), was challenged by the immortal lines:

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness … Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?

The statement, televised live, turned the public against McCarthy, and ultimately ended his career. Unfortunately, today’s public has become so partisan that the expectation of decency has evaporated to a mere vestige. We don’t care about decency, decorum, and respect for the system that made this country great any more, not when it gets in the way of what we want. And, we excuse this disregard with claims that “the other side is worse,” “they deserve it,” “they’re doing it to us, so we’ve gotta do it to them,” and other whataboutisms and rationalizations.

Power achieved by any means necessary is almost certainly power that will be misused and abused. You may not like Kavanaugh, but supporting what’s being done to him, barring some 25th hour production of actual evidence (and even then – such should have been produced months ago) is supporting the further destruction of an already-imperiled system – AND – supporting the politics of character assassination. Success here will not end well for you, no matter what you think.