Kavanaugh and the Crisis of LegitimacyColumn: Why the Supreme Court justice became a symbol of polarization
Matthew Continetti - SEPTEMBER 20, 2019 5:00 AM
It is impossible to separate the latest attack on Justice Brett Kavanaugh from the political strategy of the Democratic Party. On September 16, two days after the New York Times "Sunday Review" section told of another allegation of sexual misconduct during Kavanaugh's college years, "Axios AM" described Democratic plans "to portray President Trump, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as the three villains defining the three branches of government for the 2020 campaign." The reasoning: "Each of these white men, they will argue, symbolizes Republican corruption and rule-bending."
Because opinions of Trump do not change, the Democrats have decided to rally their base against the two other "white men." That is why all of the major Democratic presidential candidates except for Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar called for Kavanaugh's impeachment after the publication of the Times essay. It is why the media gave the accusation, heard by reporters second-hand, saturation coverage. And it is why Ayanna Pressley, member of the Squad, introduced a resolution to start an impeachment investigation...
The Kavanaugh controversy is not, as one reporter for the Washington Post described it, a "journalistic mishap." It is a case of Democratic activists and lawmakers using journalists precisely as intended: as instruments of a political agenda. Democrats are much more aware than Republicans that the very survival of their party depends on the maintenance of the "Living Constitution" as opposed to the Constitution as written and subsequently amended. The courts have been the Democrats' backstop. If Donald Trump transforms them, liberals would have to reckon with the voting public. Things could get ugly.
If the judiciary were to overturn Roe, end affirmative action, roll back the administrative state, protect the Second Amendment, and limit congressional power to regulate interstate commerce, American politics would look vastly different, and the constituent groups of the Democratic Party would be radically disempowered. That is why the Democrats have responded so fiercely to nominations of conservatives to the bench, beginning with Judge Robert Bork in 1987. They know the stakes...
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