Exposing Angry America

Well, wasn’t yesterday fun? Many Americans, like me, watched the long, long day of hearings, and Facebook is full of comments, mostly disbelief at the anger displayed. Lots of us seem to feel Kavanaugh disqualified himself, and it had precious little to do with Christine Blasey-Ford. It had to do with his anger management issues, his belligerent partisanship, his total absorption in himself.

I have nothing to add except one point I haven’t seen belabored much: Lindsey Graham, who also disgraced himself, kept shouting, “You’re ruining this man’s life.” And Kavanaugh himself whined a lot about how hard all this has been on his family.

They miss the point: his future, his career, his happy family life is not what’s at stake here. It’s the future of our country, the future of women, of working people, minorities, even wildlife species. I don’t care a fig about his career or his family, and now I find it even harder to dredge up any sympathy.

By contrast, Dr. Ford did not mention her family. When asked, she admitted to claustrophobia which she traced to the high-school attack on her. And when a senator—Cory Booker, but I don’t think he was the first—asked how her family was doing, she simply said they are fine and, “Thank you for asking.” The contrast in styles is remarkable.

And, frankly, I would give two cents for the future of the Kavanaugh marriage. Mrs. K. looked neither proud nor happy while her husband spoke.

The committee will vote him out today, angry old white men predominating. There’s still a chance he will not be confirmed next week, but it’s strange to think that our fate is in the hands of so few. This is not democracy at its best. Nor have the cream of the crop of our population risen to the top.

Hear that shouting? It’s the Founding Fathers protesting from the grave what’s happened to their experiment in democracy.

Oh, Eve! Why did you eat that apple?

American women are almost unanimously united in the belief that justice was served yesterday with the sentencing of Bill Cosby and his classification as a violently dangerous predator. Certainly, I agree—women accused him in overwhelming numbers, he drugged and raped them, and he damaged or destroyed a lot of lives. Still I found it sad to see “America’s Dad,” old and blind, led away in handcuffs. The image chipped away another bit of our image of ourselves as a moral nation. We are not who we like to think we are.

Tomorrow I will rearrange my work on my desk to watch the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of Christina Blasey-Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. I am interested to see Ford and hope she can conduct herself with dignity, but I’m afraid my mind is made up on Kavanaugh. His innocent “Oh gosh! Who me? I would never do that!” act or as someone called it his choir-boy image is too much to be believed. The way we see him fawn over government leaders on TV these days makes it easy for me to believe he would do whatever to be one of the boys back in the eighties.

It’s not just two accusers—one credible and one a bit uncertain—who seem to confirm his guilt. It’s the aura of nastiness that surrounds his high school and college years. Too many people testifying to the culture and groups he was part of, too much inuendo, too much guilt by association. If he truly is innocent, I would think he would be the one to request an FBI investigation. But no. I believe he even declined to answer some questions in committee because they were too personal. Not a privilege he can enjoy at this point.

We all know that this SCOTUS appt. goes beyond the irreparable damage he does and can do on the bench. The way our government treats women, the respect we’re shown, the control over our bodies, our freedom, our lives all hang in the balance. Along with other major issues such as fair treatment to workers, survival of endangered species—a whole frightening laundry list.

But I think, like the Cosby case, the significance goes beyond that and determines the image of America as a moral nation. It’s almost a morality play with the good guys in white hats and the bad in black. Are we going to allow ourselves to be bullied by scum like Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn who would ram an appointment through for the sake of party and not country, not democracy? Or are we finally at last ready to stand up and declare that it’s time for the good guys to win?

It’s not easy. Today a few men (and a couple of women) hold that power in their hands, and we are momentarily dependent on their sense of morality. The Founding Fathers wisely wrote checks and balances into the Constitution, but I fear they never foresaw a situation where an entire party would be as corrupt as we see today.

I am a bit cheered to hear the idea floated again of impeaching Clarence Thomas—apparently another woman has come forward to second Anita Hill’s accusations. I doubt anything will come of it, but it’s nice to know Supreme Court judges can be impeached in extremis. I read somewhere that if confirmed Kavanaugh will be “impeachable.” 

Call me Pollyanna, but I still believe the guys and gal in white hats will triumph. Sometimes I'm impatient about how soon.