GOP RIP
By Chuck Peek
Nothing so depicts the descent of the GOP into capitulation to Trump more than the rushed hearing of Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
The capitulation itself should not have surprised us so. Apparently. Some of us still harbored hopes that the party of Republican principles was not quite dead. The capitulation, however, wasn’t sudden; it had been building for some time. Even the Bush presidents encouraged campaign strategies appealing to the furthest right of the right wing. George W. helped George H.W. to woo, and thus embolden, some of the so-called religious right, and W. himself brought the likes of Cheney and Ashcroft to power.
In all the much-deserved tributes to the late Senator John McCain, it was wise that at the commemorations of his various obvious virtues everyone was tactfully silent about his role in Sarah Palin’s rise from much deserved Alaskan obscurity to national nuisance. One good thing about Trump, I suppose, is that a lot of former national nuisances seem now to be having trouble getting any traction. It’s hard to get air time against the Tweeter-in-Chief. The likes of Pat Buchanan, of course, have tried; and the once honorable Mayor Giuliani has salivated at the thought, while New Jersey’s Governor has been strangely silent.
It is the monsters we create that end up swallowing us whole. Watch any late-night, black-and-white sci-fi movie set in a lagoon or a laboratory!
But even in the midst of much political cowardice and dissembling, the whole matter of the Supreme Court looms as the finest hour of their villainy.
Much of current justice nomination politics sails under the rubric that “both parties” are “equally guilty” of politicizing the court. There’s just enough of a grain of truth in that to gain spokespersons who should know better. Either party can, of course, point to how the other party has politicized many nominations, as though the role of justice in the Supreme Court were a party reward, like appointing your cousin dog catcher in Mississippi, or filling an alderman position with your wife’s brother in some Chicago suburb.
To buy the “equally to blame” argument, however, is to forget some of the Republican political strategy, a strategy that in retrospect seems clear: to nominate obviously unfit candidates so as to force a resistance that could then be used to stoke up the argument that “they do it too”. Just think of Nixon and a series of failed nominations, nominations not only of mediocre candidates but of candidates who championed mediocrity.
And, if winning is all that matters in politics, then why shouldn’t they have adopted the strategy they adopted? They may have begun by losing a couple of Supreme Court nominees they weren’t serious about in the first place, but they’ve ended by finding “equally guilty” an argument that elevated Donald Trump to the White House. “Both candidates are bad,” a friend told me, “but at least we don’t need to worry about Trump being locked up.” He said this with a straight face!
More to the point, however, even if Democrats were as guilty as Republicans in the business of nominating candidates for Justice of the Supreme Court, this can’t possibly be said of the candidate Obama nominated and who, led by ‘Rock Jaw’ McConnell could not even get a hearing. Merrick Garland was clearly a candidate of impeccable qualifications and of moderate politics, a candidate whose virtues were not going to benefit either party but only the country.
Then, having blocked even a hearing for Garland, the GOP turned around and nominated a clearly partisan Judge Gorsuch and now an even more sinisterly partisan Kavanaugh. Always beware when someone’s chief defense is that they love their children! For those too young to remember, this mantra was often invoked on behalf of Fascist functionaries and sympathizers and of Mafia dons.
Candidate Scout Master may indeed have many personal virtues, though those have been shadowed with doubt; but he rose to the top of Trump’s list for only one credential—he seriously believes, despite his testimony, that the President may well be above the law.
I don’t suppose any of us can imagine why President Trump would find that attractive in a candidate! After all, no one has to worry about him being locked up! My friend may have been on to something.
Meanwhile, the eminent Senator Ben Sasse, Republican from Nebraska, formerly president of a small college stronger before he came than when he left, has lauded Kavanaugh, and many folks have admired his appeal to bipartisanship and nice-guyism. Sasse’s record is interesting in its own right. Many speeches knocking President Trump, positioning himself for his own run for the White House—he told folks at his college that he wanted to be President—but a voting record just like that of most of the current crop of Republicans, solidly in favor of almost everything on the Trump agenda. He’s the two faces of what “moderate” looks like in the Republican Party today.
Meanwhile, Democrats have looked like deer caught in the headlights as the GOP turned its attack on Feinstein and her colleagues for not coming forward sooner with the various allegations of misconduct that surfaced, including the damning and undeniable yearbook inscription. No one pointed out that Kavanaugh was not nominated by the Democrats who, therefore, did not bear the responsibility of vetting him carefully before nominating him. No one pointed out that this means the GOP either didn’t vet him carefully, or did and nominated him anyway. Since in a recent poll most GOP women said they would want him confirmed even if the allegations proved true, I’d guess the latter…the final betrayal of principle for the GOP being that they have adopted the old Communist philosophy: the end justifies the means. Nothing could provide more proof of that than the President’s comment in the Sixty Minutes interview when he told us he belittled the doctor and her testimony because, if he hadn’t, his nominee would not have been appointed!
It was probably never in doubt that Judge Kavanaugh would soon be Justice Kavanaugh. America will have to live with him for a long time—his other virtue is that he is comparatively young. My guess is that, if he is not impeached by Justice Roberts’ investigation, he might even outlive the party that nominated him. Its death throes as a political entity are still some way off, though surely coming. But as the political embodiment of a philosophy of good government, conservative values, balanced budgets, bi-partisan defense, and individual rights, it is already dead. It killed itself by abandoning its historic principles. Now in the name of God only knows what ends, they are the party of gerrymandering districts, hobbling the legislative process, and subverting the Supreme Court. Their poster boys (ah, yes, male!) are the smarmy GOP senators on the judiciary committee, AwShucks Grassley, SadlyNamed Kennedy, and perhaps the most unprincipled person to serve in the Senate since Joe McCarthy, Chinless Mitch McConnell.
GOP voters still think they are voting for the party of their forebears; I have to think their forebears at least now know better and must be wondering how their offspring could be so blind.
I was once proud to be a Republican; today I’d be totally ashamed. Meanwhile, the mid-term elections loom. Who knows how loudly the death rattle will sound. The eventual obituary is certain. RIP GOP.
Kearney, Nebraska October 2018
capeek 