The dust is not settled and the worst is not behind us. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing showed us exactly what happens when the primal rage of the Democratic Party mob is unleashed.
That Kavanaugh’s hearing smacked more of an X-rated “High School Musical,” than a picture of the world’s “greatest deliberative body” is only half the story. What should concern the American citizenry is that Democrats are on track to disrupting and delegitimizing every hall of civic power in vengeance for 2016. And if they are rewarded for that, there will only be more chaos.
During the 2016 Republican Primary, one of Jeb Bush’s favorite punchlines was that Trump was “a chaos candidate.” This may turn out to be more prescient than anyone thought, but for different reasons. Chaos is not descending upon us because of Donald Trump: the economy and military, two stabilizing forces to our government, are stronger than ever. Rather, chaos has been unleashed because of Democrats’ visceral hatred for his policies. They cannot stand the way he upends politically correct speech etiquette, how he mocks Democrats as he trounces 8 years of Obama’s now-shattered legacy, and his tactless, instinctual leadership style. Though clearly, no one can control one’s personal reaction to Trump, one can and should control one’s response to him. Unfortunately, Democrats emotionally react rather than respond to him – and our 24/7 media outrage machine only emboldens and complements them. What we are experiencing is a soft coup; a delegitimizing of, not just a presidency, but a Republic.
For perspective, we need to look back to the year 1987, when President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to serve on the Supreme Court. Not since FDR’s attempt to pass his New Deal by packing the courts, had such overt unproductive partisanship been on full display. Even the most seething decree by the sanctimonious Chuck Schumer could not contend with Ted Kennedy’s excoriations. In a nationally televised address, Kennedy warned that “Bork’s America,” would be, “a land [of] back-alley abortions…segregated lunch counters…midnight raids [where] citizens could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government…and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.” How’s that for hyperbole?
While hyperbolic predictions of segregated lunch counters and a scholastic ban on teaching evolution were thankfully never enacted, Kennedy nearly describes the dystopian hellscape of Barack Obama’s tenure, with domino rows of dilapidated factories added in. What this demonstrates is a pattern on the left of debasing and delegitimizing any nominee to the court that does not suit their fancy. They so loathed Bork that his confirmation failed—only the ascendancy of moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy pacified their rage. Yet, despite their efforts to prevent originalist Justices from being confirmed to the court—Justices who interpret the constitution on the founder’s terms, not on their own—their plans backfired.
Consider the following: Bork died in 2012, so had he been confirmed, Obama would have been able to appoint his replacement. Instead, Reagan’s replacement, Justice Anthony Kennedy, against even the New York Time’s vainglorious warnings allowed Trump to name his successor making possible the 5-4 originalist majority now on the Supreme Court. It’s as if Ronald Reagan himself reached out from his urn to right the wrongs of the Bork incident, returning the supremacy of the Constitution, as written, to the Supreme Court while delivering a notch in Trump’s belt.
We have to give our thanks for this, Ronald Reagan’s last act of statecraft come to fruition. Though, since they nailed their own coffin, maybe we should be thanking the Democrats.
Yet, whatever temptation there may be to say “yes” to that suggestion; however strong the urge to binge triumphant Youtube playlists in smug self-satisfaction while drinking from a thermos of “leftist tears,” the reality is this: Democrats made this a pyrrhic victory. Republicans may have won the day, but it was at so great a cost it feels like a net loss for the whole country.
This is not because the nominee himself is so tainted that he sullies the court by his confirmation—though the jilted Democrats did taint him—nor because the near party-line vote undercuts the court’s image. No, this is a pyrrhic victory because, like Japanese Kamikaze pilots, Democrats decided if they couldn’t beat the system, they’d take the whole system down with them. In place of peaceful protest, scores of angry mob members harassed Senators in elevators, screeching in the face of even the reasonable Susan Collins for her vote. They clawed at the doors, caterwauling from the Senate gallery at such a fever pitch one could barely hear the roll call. Their tacit overlords, Democratic Senators, merely sat there basking in the mayhem, as if they thought it deserved or desirable. It was neither.
Regardless of what one thinks of Dr. Ford’s claims—and there may be no way to prove them true or false—nothing justified Democrats weaponizing a sexual assault claim by holding onto it until the 11th hour in order to maximize the disruption it would cause. These were not the acts of “the greatest deliberative body on Earth,” they were the sadistic acts of an arsonist prepared to go down in the flames of his own conflagration. They’re on the level of every other institution the Democrats have delegitimized in their quest to avenge their loss in 2016: The White House, by a marathon Mueller witch hunt; our electoral college, by claims of Russian interference despite intelligence reports that the interference was not decisive in the election result; and now, The Supreme Court. The whole fiasco looked like a show-trial, which made Kavanaugh’s impassioned speech in his defense all the more justified for its emotional content.
Embattled and embittered, Kavanaugh gave more prescient words than those of Jeb Bush in 2016 about the chaos to come. Of the Democrats reckless acts, he warned: “You sowed the wind. For decades to come, I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwinds.”
If the Democrats win in 2018, we certainly will.
