The Senate Hearing and Democracy

If there was one element of the Senate Judiciary Hearing that stood out clearly it was the clear indication that the principles of democracy are in the process of breaking down, if they have not already.

The purpose of the Hearing was, theoretically, to determine whether the candidate was a suitable person to be given a life appointment to the highest court in the land. In practice, the Hearing was no better than a rubber stamp process to appoint the President’s nominee, regardless of whatever evidence was led.

The testimonies were remarkable, with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford demonstrating to the American public the courage and honesty that should be a hallmark of American society. She was honest about what she remembered and did not remember of that traumatic night, when she was attacked by two brutal drunk men, who attempted to rape her, a fifteen year old girl. Every indicator demonstrated her honesty, and her conviction that she knew who the two attackers were. One of them was Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the candidate. Not one of the twenty-one Senators questioned her honesty, yet the eleven Republican Senators did not believe her clear statement that the man whose integrity they were there to evaluate was one of the men involved in that primitive act. Judge Brett Kavanaugh made an aggressive statement, denying any wrongdoing, ever. His record shows that he, at that age, was an aggressive drunk, prone to binging on the beer that he forthrightly admitted to enjoying. His statement contained many of the All American stereotypes, including weightlifting and training, with a heavy emphasis on how he has always liked women, to the extent that his list of friends includes an unusually heavy preponderance of women, that he has always been heavily involved in promoting the interests of women and girls, including coaching a girls team for his daughters’ school, something he loved. He declared that his father had always maintained a ‘calendar’, a form of diary on a daily basis, enumerating the events that were later enjoyed by the family as reminders of the years past, and that he, Kavanaugh, had done the same since two years before the event. He alleged that this calendar was contemporaneous evidence of the fact that he had not had the time over a weekend during the period of the event described by Dr. Blasey Ford to do anything of the kind.

An evaluation of the signs of credibility shown by the accuser leaves no doubt in one’s mind that she was telling the truth. That same evaluation of the alleged perpetrator raised huge doubts in the mind of the observer as to his credibility. Those doubts were further confirmed when he refused to answer a question whether he had ever drunk so much that he could not remember the events of the time, questioning the Senator whether she had ever blacked out in that way. When she replied that she had never had a drinking problem, he said, smugly, that he had not had one either. That was not a clear and unambiguous answer to a simple question. It was an evasion, a means to seem to reply without saying that he had never blacked out. As a Judge, Kavanaugh must have known what is answering tactic implied, and, as a Judge, he would almost certainly have demanded an answer to the question. The conduct of Kavanaugh throughout the Hearing was far from what one would reasonably expect from a man who will need to consider the meaning and implications of every word he says in the Court. He also failed to accept the offer by a Senator to await a detailed investigation by the FBI that, he had averred, would clearly exonerate him of any wrongdoing.

The Senate Hearing refused to withhold their decision to obtain further evidence from the companion of the attacker or from the two other women accusers of Kavanaugh. They refused to withhold the approval of the man to await a detailed investigation by the FBI, endorsing Kavanaugh’s view that facts were not an essential consideration in the appointment of a Supreme Court Judge.

The Senate finally voted to pass approval of the candidate to the full Senate, although Senator Flake, in compliance with his name, suggested that his critically-important vote in favor of appointing Kavanaugh should be considered to be with the proviso that further investigation be conducted by the FBI before the full Senate decided. The vote, predictably, was 11 Republican votes in favor of the appointment and 10 Democratic votes against.

An impartial observer might be forgiven for wondering how it could be that an extremely important appointment, having potential influence over the highest Court for possibly thirty years into the future, could have been arrived at on purely partisan lines. Surely, if the Democratic Senators had firm doubts about the suitability of the candidate, at least some of the Republican Senators would also have harbored some such doubts, and vice versa, surely some of the Democratic Senators should have shared some of their counterparts’ views that the candidate was an excellent choice?

But no. The Donald has spoken, and we Republicans shall obey.

The Senate Judiciary Committee rubberstamped the approval of Kavanaugh, in the face of the damning allegations, convincingly presented by one highly-credible woman Professor and made by two further women, with all Republican Senators toeing the Republican line, and all Democrat Senators toeing the Democrat line. The Hearing was a farce. It was a show for the public, to convince the voting suckers that these highly-paid and supposedly unbiased men and women were doing the job they are paid to do. It was a convincing display of how the system of democracy has been perverted to serve the needs of the Party bosses.

A novel, published man years ago, entitled ‘The Year of the Angry Rabbit’ described the Australian political system. An election was held, to determine the number of seats held by each of the two Parties. Once that number was known, the Prime Minister took office, appointed twelve Ministers, whose sole function was to be fired in the event that there was a public outcry against the actions of the government, and all the Representatives went home, to enjoy the salaries they were paid. The difference in the American system of ‘democracy’ is that the political masters are not so open about what they are doing. They need the Representatives to be at the office, to make the worthy public statements about their positions and their Party, and to campaign for the next election, but, in essence, the system is the one described in that book. The Representatives and Senators are bound to toe the Party line in everything. The Senate Hearing has proved that conclusively.

Under this system, the only thing that can save Democracy is to have Party bosses who are exceptional thinkers, mean and women of the highest capability and integrity, people who will act solely in line with the best interests of the nation and the individual voters who elect their public Representatives. That could not have been said for most of the past several Administrations, and it is a description of the exact opposite of the Trump Administration, which has done so much to destroy the standing of America in the world, and to hand over so many of the gains made over decades of careful work to build the credibility of the country as leader of the Free World. America is not alone in this retrograde step. It now officially joins the ranks of the African banana republics, in which the Parliaments and Congresses are no more than irritations for the Man who would be King.

The world mourns the passing of a system that promised so much to so many, and now hands so much to so few.