'Rock bottom': the Supreme Court's fight reveals a country on the brink

When Christine Blasey Ford accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault last month, she did more than open to close scrutiny. She has shown a mirror to a country in crisis, unveiling its political actors and institutions, not for what they claim to be, but for what they really are.

The painful 20-day passionate play that ensued – staged in committee rooms, Senate debates, hallway events, and millions of private conversations – did little to change the future composition of the Supreme Court. Today, Judge Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed Saturday by the Senate, 50-48, at a vote that outlined the expectations of the summer, with only one Democrat and one Republican standing out from the party line.

But few actors have come out of the process without change or blemish, highlighting the unexplored territory of increasing mistrust and polarization that is now defining the American system. Events further removed the Senate Judiciary Committee from its almost forgotten bipartisan traditions and raised new questions about the Supreme Court's potential to maintain an independent authority outside the political whirlwind.

Public denunciations of the continuation of the slide were frequent and bipartite, while political strategists and lawmakers raised new alarms about disturbing implications. Even the biggest Republicans were discouraged on Saturday afternoon in the approach of the vote, aware of the cost of political and cultural calculation initiated in parallel to the confirmation process.

"There is a cultural, spiritual and social split," said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), Who served on the Judiciary Committee and supported Kavanaugh. "It has more to do with the pace of change. There are Americans who would like to see our country change quickly. "

Senator John Cornyn (Tex.), The second Republican, attributed divisions in Washington to the wounds inflicted by Trump's election in 2016, that "half of the population can not seem to exceed the limit."

If the Democrats win the majority in the House, as it seems likely, some MPs will try to impeach both the Kavanaugh High Court and Trump's presidency, just as special advocate Robert S. Mueller III should finish parts of his work on the federal inquiry into the interference of Russia in the 2016 campaign.

The vortex on the horizon worries leaders of both parties about the possible escalation of fierce national fights as Trump grapples with his opponents and the 2020 presidential race heats up later this year .

"The scar tissue will be thicker, the poison stronger and the wells deeper," said Republican strategist Michael Steel, former advisor to President John A. Boehner.

Other Republicans see more fundamental cracks with historical connotations.

"This is the second most divided in our history and the legitimacy of the court concerns me," said conservative commentator William J. Bennett, comparing the present moment to the failures that preceded the civil war.

"More and more liberal critics say that Kavanaugh would give the court two criminally accused people of sexual harassment," he continued, "and they are now making noises that court decisions may be lacking. of legitimacy ".

Democrats are besieged by Trump's fierce fight, by the White House's firm grip on the FBI's investigation of Ford's allegations, and by fears that the country's institutional bases will crumble day by day as they are trying to rally their constituents before November.

"There is a real question of whether we can all move forward in the face of these cultural and human challenges and in partisan partisanship," said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) In an interview. "The damage will be lasting for the court and the country."

Under the pressure of these divisions, no official has been able to step out of the fray to chart the way forward towards greater national unity and mutual understanding. Moral indignation has been accepted as the basic currency of the political debate, with opponents regularly attacking each other's motives and positions, and honest reflection, as it passes through the mouth, is often dismissed as sign of weakness or posture.

Kavanaugh himself publicly dropped his own carefully constructed facade as an independent and non-partisan jurist. On September 27, in an angry speech, she criticized the Democratic Senators' motives and, in particular, asserted that his opponents were seeking revenge for him "on behalf of" the Clintons. He then backtracked, saying the statements could jeopardize his ability to rule on cases with partisan implications.

"I said a few things that I should not have said," wrote Kavanaugh in the Wall Street Journal, without however stating the things he regretted.

Similarly, President Trump relinquished his initial efforts to provide a respectful platform for Ford's story to be heard, returning during the past week to familiar – and false – personal attacks on her and her. its supporters, associated with refrains on the danger represented by the movement #MeToo. to men. "It's a very scary time for young men in America where you can be guilty of something you can not be guilty of," he said.

His advisers praised his initial restraint as a sign of unacknowledged self-control, while announcing Trump's next approach to the crisis. Once again, he sought to foment the anger of his followers and to direct it on his political opponents.

"The president breaks the norms and Kavanaugh gets it," said a Trump advisor who was not allowed to speak in public. "When everything comes to you, you do not cry. You must be like Trump and face your opponents. "

Democratic strategists who follow polls in Republican-style states where Democratic senators run for re-election are surprised by the seemingly galvanizing impact of Trump's offensive on its base. Brian Fallon, a former Hillary Clinton advisor who ran Demand Justice, a group opposed to Kavanaugh, said that support for the judge has increased in those states after Trump's tactical change.

As a result, Fallon said that he had begun to reevaluate one of the dominant analyzes of the 2016 election, according to which Trump had been elected despite evidence of sexual misconduct to his and not because of the controversy that motivated his constituents to go to the polls.

"I have the impression that there has been a screaming reaction from the Republican's too white and too masculine base," Fallon said of the reaction to the controversy. Kavanaugh. This may have been a repeat of the reaction in the fall of 2016, when a recording of "Access Hollywood" showed that Trump was boasting about groping women. "Very few people were willing to accept the idea that it could have had a galvanizing effect that further polarized the country," Fallon said.

Without direct corroboration of accusations of sexual misconduct made by Kavanaugh on the part of Ford and other women, Americans in Congress hallways at the kitchen table were forced to fill in the blanks themselves.

Public polls showed that they had done so by resorting mostly to their political identities, a tribal response that was stalking further evidence of increasing polarization. An August Pew poll found that 78% of Americans say Democrats and Republicans disagree not only on "plans and policies" but also on "basic facts".

After Ford and Kavanaugh testified before the Senate about the alleged assault on high school, 86% of Democrats told Quinnipiac investigators that they thought it was his account, compared to 84% of Republicans who said they believed in Kavanaugh. Women, who identify more and more with the Democratic Party, were more likely than men to side with Ford.

"The Republicans looked at it and saw two people whose rival credentials should have determined whether a qualified constitutionalist should to be denied a seat on the Supreme Court, "said Alex Castellanos, GOP Policy Consultant. "Democrats have looked into the issue and have seen the long way women have come to gain independence and overcome the constraints of their gender."

These differences are likely to provide significant support this fall to Democratic House candidates, who clearly have the opportunity to win Republican seats in more suburban rural and suburban districts dominated by educated women.

Democrats have privately said that Kavanaugh's success could bring benefits to the polls. "I think anger lasts much longer than satisfaction as a motivator for voting," said a senior Senate official, who requested anonymity to discuss the bid's policy.

Republicans, who hope the controversy could help them in Republican-style Senate clashes, also said the impact on Democrats' participation would be downplayed because these same voters were already much more enthusiastic to vote in the mid-1990s. mandate that the Trump Foundation.

"Republicans should present themselves in all states and confront the Democrats and ask them," Do you want to commit yourself not to dismiss Kavanaugh? "Said the former president of the Republican House, Newt Gingrich. "Keep them in defense. Remind people of how enraged these people are.

Conservative activists have celebrated the past few weeks, both as a victory in the war for supreme court leadership and as an effort to reformulate #MeToo's effort as an over-assault on men, some of whom are accused at wrong.

"We won small victories with regulation. This is the big win, "said US President for Tax Reform Grover Norquist. "We cut the forest, not the trees."

He added that Kavanaugh's position in the High Court would weaken the Democratic Party by further nullifying the legal precedent that gave unions more power, a major source of funding for the left.

On Fox News – which is watched daily by Trump and whose former leader, Bill Shine, is currently the deputy chief of staff of the president – the speech went from partisan to biblical about the issues.

"The crucifixion was an important event because it was aimed at building a wall between justice and the law of the crowd – Christ died so that the crowd could not survive," said Fox News presenter Greg Gutfeld, adding that the Democrats had "decided to crucify someone once again."

Grievances about gender and race on the network have been widespread. Laura Ingraham, prime time presenter, tweeted that the insistence on the lack of corroborating evidence behind the Ford charge could herald "the year of the years."

"This is the world we live in, in which white men are presumed guilty because they are white, because they are supposed to be in a privileged position," said writer and podcaster Ben Shapiro at Fox News.

This rhetoric, which has been countered on the left by the hashtag #BelieveWomen and the angry clashes on the US Capitol, frames the complex debate over the widespread problem of sexual assault as a binary choice, with both sides making themselves the victim of fierce opponents. dishonest. As a result, the public space for finding common ground, which is the starting point for a functioning democracy, has diminished.

On Capitol Hill, the planned overhaul of the harassment by-law in Congress remains stalled. Even the appropriate response to the evidence of misconduct is now the subject of debate. The then Democrat Senator, Al Franken (Minnesota), resigned in January, as a result of allegations of misconduct, including a photo holding him at the chest of a sleeping woman and a woman. Crowds of House members, Republicans and Democrats, also left office following allegations. .

Trump ridiculed Franken this week at a rally in Minnesota, saying he had "folded" like a wet rag "and that he was" wacky ".

"One can only hope that the appointment of Mr. Kavanaugh will be the end point of the process," Senegalese Senator Susan Collins said Friday when she announced her decision to support the judge, despite the fact that Ford's testimony was "sincere". painful and convincing. "

She was repeating a phrase – "down below" – that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) had used a day earlier while he angrily criticized the press for bias that # He had shown in his reports on Kavanaugh, choosing to interview more Ford supporters than Kavanaugh.

As he was heading to the room on Saturday, retired Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) repeated this sentiment. When asked why he and others were using this phrase, Flake grimaced and said, "Because it's like we're at the bottom of the list."

What no one could offer, it was a credible way out of the abyss.