Capitol Hill Democrats and the broader body of leftists around the nation have made it clear there are but two acceptable outcomes to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to the United States Supreme Court: either Kavanaugh is (one way or another) withdrawn from consideration, or the Senate does not produce enough “yes” votes to confirm. That’s it. They want him gone.
One can’t help but wonder what Democrats’ end game is. Suppose they are successful in their efforts and Kavanaugh is ultimately removed from consideration to fill Justice Anthony Kennedy’s vacated seat — then what? Democrats, you are never, ever going to get what you want.
As Barack Obama said following his 2008 electoral victory, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”
He later went on to tell Republicans, “You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it, but don’t break it.” Does that shoe fit on one foot but not the other?
What liberals ultimately want is for President Trump to nominate the ideological equivalent of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Democrats want Trump to send them a SCOTUS consideration with a lengthy track record of having supported abortion rights, a demonstrable LBGTQ warrior with multiple rulings in favor of gun control and a history of being soft on immigration and border security enforcement laws. Well, Dems, that’s not going to happen. Trump won. It’s his choice.
Should Democrats succeed in submarining the nomination of Kavanaugh, Trump is going to nominate and send to the Senate Judiciary Committee another Brett Kavanaugh. Should they pull some more 11th-hour shenanigans and get that nominee booted, he will nominate another — and then another. There is no one on Trump’s list who is also on Jerry Brown’s.
The effort to get rid of Kavanaugh began long before an allegation that he once behaved inappropriately as a teenager came to the surface. Before a single hearing — before a single question had been asked about his record, how he reached passed decisions, hypotheticals about cases that could come before the SCOTUS, the White House had simply released his name — and before the man had a chance to get home and take his suit coat off, the wheels were turning to block him.
What Democrats truly want is bipartisanship when they’re in power; but they’ll kick, scream and resist to high heaven when they aren’t.
Kennedy’s retirement marks the third Supreme Court vacancy in recent years. Sonja Sotomayor was nominated by President Obama in May 2009. There were no crazed conservatives storming the streets holding protests nor Senators giving speeches about how she was going to take away everyone’s rights and cannot be confirmed.
Sotomayor is a committed leftist (as anyone appointed by Obama would have to be). She consistently injected race into her speeches and judicial qualifications by stating a “wise Latina would reach better conclusions than a white male.”
Imagine the firestorm if Brett Kavanaugh had been found to have said, “A white male should reach better decisions than a Hispanic woman.” Yet 23 three percent of Senate Republicans voted to confirm Sotomayor.
Two years later in May of 2010, Obama nominated Elena Kagan. Also a committed leftist (as any president of the Harvard Law School would have to be). Having a long history of LBGTQ activism, Kagan is credited for “the queering the Harvard Law School.”
Kagan’s confirmation hearing presented the Senate with a unique challenge as she had no prior judicial writings. As opposed to most Supreme Court nominees who rise up through the ranks of the U.S. judicial system as local, state then federal judges, Elena Kagan had never served as a judge at any level at any time.
She had no written opinions nor prior case experience for Senators to use in forming an opinion of her judicial disposition or qualifications. Still, twelve percent of Senate Republicans voted to confirm Kagan.
Those days of bipartisanship seem gone as today’s Senate Democrats appear willing to march in locked step and do any and everything in their power to subvert the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. But if they succeed, then what? Dig up dirt (real or imagined) on the next nominee and hope to 86 him or her too? And the next one? And the next?
Here’s a novel idea opined by a former president: rather than crying and breaking the system, go out and win some elections.
Derrick Wilburn is a Centennial Institute fellow and the founder of Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.