-Source- Time-
The Supreme Court of the United States of America, lofty pedestal of the black-robed solons, had never seen a job-interview process like this: allegations of sexual assault, the nominee declaring on cable news that he had been a virgin well past high school, the President declaring the whole spectacle the result of a Democratic “big fat con.” But then, even before the scheduled Senate hearing on allegations of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh, it was clear the Kavanaugh nomination would be a historic moment for the court.
It is tempting to see l’affaire Kavanaugh as just another contemporary political carnival, replete with angry protests and partisan recriminations. But it could hardly have more serious consequences. The allegations themselves are shocking: multiple women have come forward with accusations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, and he has forcefully claimed his innocence. The families of Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, his first accuser, are under guard to protect them from their fellow citizens. The fiasco has forced a public reckoning over privilege, the persistence of sexual trauma and the balance of power between men and women.
For the Supreme Court, the stakes go beyond Kavanaugh’s fate. It’s the latest evolution of a nominally non-partisan institution into an instrument of politics. In a nation divided, left and right are coming to view the court less as an interpreter of the law than as an activist imposer of moral and political outcomes. “It’s no coincidence that confirmations were less contentious when the court was engaging in less political decisionmaking,” says Leonard Leo, a top adviser to President Trump on judicial nominations. “When the court injects itself into lots of things that it shouldn’t, and when there’s lots of overreach by the court, that’s an inevitable thing.”
If some partisans celebrate the change, plenty of other Americans might mourn it. The court is a fragile mix of personal relationships and towering ideals. It cannot avoid being damaged by the mounting political fight, whether in the ability of its nine members to reach consensus on some of the hardest issues the country faces, or in the public trust in the result. Whoever ends up on the court, it will be called on to adjudicate the very issues–gender equality, due process and justice for victims of sexual assault–that turned the nomination of their latest potential member into a political circus. Read more
Comments