Well, the disappointment over our government seating a man such as Brett Kavanaugh to the country's highest court is rather acute this morning. We made our best logical arguments but in the end emotions won over everything. It feels as if common sense and decency lost to a mob mentality, or perhaps it was just a bunch of old white men in Washington flexing their power yet one more time, the rest of us be damned.
To me it seems that people can not stop feeling long enough to think, to carefully consider and understand the larger context but I could be wrong. Maybe Kavanaugh supporters see the big picture, too, but they just do not give a good goddamn. When the best arguments fail, all that is left is for people to find out for themselves.
I felt this way when Brownback was elected as Governor of Kansas, both times. All the arguments against his extreme agenda fell on deaf ears. I resigned myself to sit back and tick off all the things I knew would happen. Kansas lost its excellent credit rating. Our schools had to be funded by court order. Our economic growth fell below the rates of Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma. An enormous fiscal deficit formed that will take years of recovery. State services remain curtailed and are a true aggravation for even something as simple as needing a phone answered in a state office somewhere. It is not the State employees' fault. There are so few to serve so many. Most tragically, the most vulnerable people, the young, the ill, the elderly had their lives severely impacted by Mr. Brownback's run as Governor. Cuts to all manner of medical and social services were implemented, disqualifying families from critical services, placing others on long waiting lists, and most certainly making life even more difficult for the working poor. Supply side economics simply do not work but people forget that, time and time again. The point is everyone lives with the consequences of the majority rule. If "your side" does not win, it is at least a palatable loss if the majority rule was won fair and square.
State economics aside, through various underhanded shenanigans, the radical conservatives in Washington have been systematically chipping away at all the checks and balances that have made our form of government work pretty damned well - up to now. For twenty years or more this decline has been picking up speed. Now we have rampant gerrymandering, dark money, and 24 hour cycles of Fox News propaganda steering the national debate in whatever direction they require to accomplish whatever foul deed they are up to next. Some very powerful special interests have managed to wrest our democracy away from us while overseeing the largest transfer of wealth in human history - right in plain sight of every adult American citizen. At least half of us are okay with it. Ironically, it appears the half who are suffering the most are the same people who are okay with it.
Now we are well on the way to a truly radicalized Supreme Court. People have no idea what that is going to mean. They do not understand that their lives and the lives of their families will be changed in very real ways - sooner AND later. Who will stand for us, we the people, before the highest court in the land now that it has been bought and paid for by the greediest, most unprincipled pack of sharks to ever run the free world? No one. The Republicans in Washington wanted THAT man, that particular man, for a pre-determined reason, and we will find out soon enough what that reason is. It will be ugly.
As for the national discussion of the issues of sexual abusers and sexual abuse victims, the Republicans in our government literally got away with doing the most underhanded move of the last 50 years in American Government. Well, there are consequences for that, too. I just wish the half of us who are appalled by the blatant disregard for the Supreme Court, and for simple decency, did not have to suffer with those who think it is okay to subvert our government.
How long did Congress investigate Hillary Clinton? How much time and money? And what was the result? How many people are going to jail due to that investigation? But the same rabid people cannot take the time to genuinely and fairly investigate the very disturbing claims against Brett Kavanaugh - the very same man whose public behavior clearly and unequivocally demonstrated that he is temperamentally unfit to be a Supreme Court Justice? There should have been a full, genuine, apolitical investigation carried out in the best interest of our country. If innocent, Kavanaugh could have been exonerated. If Dr. Ford was lying, she could have been held accountable. (NO ONE wants to see an innocent man accused of crimes he did not commit.) Now we will never know and a there is a very real possibility that a wholly inappropriate man will be awarded a lifetime position on what should be the highest, most unimpeachable source of law interpretation for all Americans.
If you are okay with all of it - with the blatant whitewash and misuse of the FBI carried out by the Republicans in Washington this week, then I am sad to say you deserve everything coming your way. I will be sorrowfully ticking off the boxes as the ugliness arises, quite likely for the rest of my life.
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