1. President Obama said often that sensible people can gather to devise solutions to our country’s most pressing problems. He said partisan interests, in the end, would give way to reason, the national interest and the common good. That’s what he said.
2. His problem: he believed it.
3. At least, he did in the beginning of his presidency. By the end, he realized the opposing party had no interest in the national interest. Indeed, the Republicans decided their interests were predicated on being anathema to the common good.
4. Since then, I’ve made a habit of reminding people that in politics, there are two levels of meaning operating at the same time, though not equally: what politicians say they believe, and what they really believe (if anything). Sometimes they are the same.
5. Most of time, they’re not. Sometimes one (morality) must prevail over the other (rhetoric). In any case, we should never allow ourselves to believe our own spin.
6. The Republicans are telling a story of an uncompromising radical Democratic Party that maligned a decent man whose only purpose in life is serving freedom, justice and the rule of law. They are rationalizing to themselves why they voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.
7. They are telling themselves that outrage provoked by his confirmation will juice up the Republican base before the midterms, thus saving the Senate.
8. This isn’t meaningless spin. Odds of controlling the Senate are still in the Republicans’ favor. But that has nothing to do with the new associate justice. That has everything to do with numerical advantage.
9. The Republicans, however, are selling this spin to gullible reporters not because the evidence compels it—they want it to be true.
It isn’t.
It isn’t.
10. To be sure, the “Kavanaugh effect” with respect to the Republican base might become apparent in a week or two. Even then, there’s a lot time until November.
11. And to be sure, there is risk to standing up for women’s rights, as liberals did during the Senate hearings. The risk is sparking a backlash among reactionary forces that constitute the whole of the Republican Party. But that risk is a couple of things: worth it, and small.
12. Remember that Kavanaugh’s new job is the result of an unpopular president whose campaign is under investigation for ties to Russia, which, according to Kathleen Hall Jamieson, almost certainly tipped the scales in favor of Donald Trump.
13. Remember, too, that Kavanaugh unmasked his true partisan self. Pretty much anything he does now that results in a 5-4 conservative decision will be seen by at least half the electorate as compromised and illegitimate.
14. For this reason, Kavanaugh is not popular: a majority of Americans believe that the Senate should not have confirmed him.
15. Given all the above, we shouldn’t put much stock in the idea of Republican backlash saving the Senate. Again, if the GOP holds, it will be due to numerical advantage.
16. Even so, the Republicans surely want credulous reporters to believe their tale. They might even believe it themselves. But for such claims to be credible, Kavanaugh would need majority approval. He may have that as memories fade. Not now, though.
17. Many thanks for reading! Please share! stoehr.substack.com/p/dont-believe…
