Mad As Hell

September 28, 2018

The gulf between the morning and the afternoon at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing couldn’t have been wider. In the morning, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, her voice quavering, eyes wide, painstakingly detailed her assault at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh 36 years ago. She stated definitively that she knew it was Brett Kavanaugh who attacked her. Dr. Ford brought tears to our eyes as she discussed how Kavanaugh’s attempted rape destabilized her for years afterward. She was so haunted by the terror of being immobilized under the weight of a misogynistic, privileged jock behind a locked door, that she had a second front door installed in her home 30 years later, so that she might always have a means of escape. The argument over this eccentric renovation request led Dr. Ford to reveal to her husband that she had been assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh as a teenager. We have all known women like Dr. Ford —-earnest, likeable, yet haunted by something they will not name. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was terrified and utterly believable.

In contrast, Brett Kavanaugh’s performance in the afternoon revealed the aggrieved, entitled bully hiding behind his Ivy League credentials. Yesterday, Kavanaugh shed any pretense of objectivity or civility and revealed himself to be a mean spirited, partisan hack. He was by turns hostile and maudlin, yelling and cutting Democratic Senators off one minute, crying and sniveling about his 10 year old daughter praying for Dr. Ford the next. Kavanaugh lied repeatedly— about partying during the week in high school, about the meaning of the term Devil’s Triangle in his high school yearbook, even about whether he had watched Dr. Ford’s testimony. The most telling moment, though, was when he shot back, “Have you?” in response to Senator Klobuchar’s question of whether he’d ever blacked out while drinking. In that moment, we all saw the belligerent drunk completely capable of attempted rape.

The depressing thing is that we know it won’t matter. Despite Dr. Ford reliving her trauma at great personal cost and despite Kavanaugh exposing himself (pun intended) as a hostile, entitled jerk completely lacking in judicial temperament, Republicans will vote to confirm him anyway.

Kavanaugh’s elevation to the highest court will completely rob it of any legitimacy. Consistent with Trump’s narcissistic desire to destroy every American institution by remaking it in his own image, the Supreme Court will be forever debased by the presence of a “justice” who rather than being a dignified model of probity, is a spiteful, alcoholic frat boy with a law degree.

We shouldn’t be surprised. These are the same people who voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2013. While we’re at it, we should be asking why our right to be protected from sexual assault and domestic violence comes with an expiration date. It is because these fossilized cretins believe in “droit de seigneur,” and think that women serve no other purpose than to satisfy their lust or bear their children.

We need to face the fact that voting will not be enough. This society won’t change until we harness our power and force them to suffer some consequences for their actions. If they vote to confirm Kavanaugh, we need to take to the streets in numbers that make the Women’s March look like a small town Girl Scout Memorial Day parade. We need to channel Lysistrata and Norma Rae, go on strike and withhold everything. We need to let them know, We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.

#VOTE

#MARCH

#STRIKE