Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court will radicalize the Democratic Party
by Philip Klein
| October 06, 2018 06:26 PM
When Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced that she was providing Republicans with the votes necessary to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, I imagine liberals felt something similar to the way that conservatives felt when the Democratic majority passed Obamacare.
After all, Obamacare was an unpopular piece of legislation, there were moments when it seemed in danger, conservatives rallied and placed their hopes on a handful of self-proclaimed centrist Democrats. In the end, it didn’t matter. All that mattered, conservatives were reminded, is that the party in power has the ability to impose its will on the rest of the nation, and the only way to change this is to win elections. The anger that followed fueled a Republican takeover of the House and, eventually, the Senate.
To conservatives, the confirmation of Kavanaugh is the culmination of a decadeslong quest to secure a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in the hopes of restoring a more faithful obedience to the Constitution. It is seen as a triumph over a nasty, coordinated attempt at character assassination, an all-too-familiar tactic deployed by the Left. Going back to Robert Bork, and on through Clarence Thomas and Miguel Estrada, Democrats have been vicious in efforts to block conservative judicial nominees, and this time, they failed.
It’s always important in politics, however, to consider how a major event is viewed by one’s opponents.
The liberal view of history is a tale of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pursuing an unprecedented campaign of obstruction as minority leader, regularly filibustering President Barack Obama’s nominees, thus forcing then-Majority Leader Harry Reid to nuke the filibuster to move certain candidates. Then, McConnell took things to a new level once Republicans took over the Senate by blocking Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Adopting a “no hearings, no votes†strategy, McConnell kept a seat open for President Trump, who has now appointed two justices.
To liberals, Kavanaugh’s confirmation was another example of Republicans disregarding norms to advance their agenda, this time in the name of putting a lying partisan hack who more likely than not attempted to commit rape in the position of overturning hard-earned rights for workers, women, and minority groups. They, too, were disappointed when so-called centrist senators ultimately provided their party with the votes to make this happen.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/brett-kavanaughs-nomination-to-the-supreme-court-will-radicalize-the-democratic-party
