Thursday’s U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing was one of the bitterest days in Washington since 1856 — that's 162 years ago — when a congressman from South Carolina beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner senseless with a metal-headed wooden cane. The issue: slavery. South Carolina, of course, is the home of Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham’s tirade over the public battering of supreme court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh was the tipping point in the spectacle. Kavanaugh’s self-defense — maudlin, but muscular (reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s Checker’s speech) — was an invitation for someone to go medieval on the Democrats. Graham stepped up. A cynic might wonder if it was choreographed that way.
There were, of course, a few other takeaways from the hearing.
1. The media is portraying this as a battle between the sincerity and authenticity of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teens, and the credibility of Kavanaugh, who “categorically” denies it. Not everyone sees it that way. I've been monitoring a handful of never-Trump religious and conservative bloggers. Their verdict: Kavanaugh vindicated himself. These largely southern and mid-western opinion makers are not anti-Ford. Rather, they are pro-Kavanaugh. These bloggers feel Ford is credible, but they cry foul at the idea of jumping into the way-back machine to scrutinize the actions of a 17-year-old Kavanaugh.
2. Major decisions, Walter Lippmann wrote in 1922, are not made by Congress, but rather by the intersection of the executive and public opinion. Stripped to its essentials, Kavanaugh is about Trump. The senate is merely the arena. The U.S. Supreme Court may be the prize, but Trump is the essence.
3. Thanks to Kavanaugh and Graham, Trump won Thursday. Blasey Ford’s testimony and stoic humanity were admirable, but in the end those qualities will be beside the point. Kavanaugh himself is largely beside the point. If he is withdrawn or rejected, another judge or law professor very much like him will take his place. Well-credentialed conservative jurists are hardly an endangered species.
4. In the press, we tend to personalize Kavanaugh-like conflicts because narrative and technique are assumed to make a multi-dimensional situation understandable. But fact-based story telling does not necessarily cut to the quick of reality. And that reality is that Trump wants to appoint a judge who is sufficiently anti-abortion to overturn, threaten, or further modify Roe v. Wade to keep the base happy and who simultaneously holds an expansive view of presidential authority as an insurance policy against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian investigation.
5. The Kavanaugh outcome does have immediate tactical significance. Trump and congressional Republicans now appear safe with their most valued voters. The exception is traditional, white, Republican women over 50. It’s not that these predominantly suburban women will vote Democratic. The fear among GOP mechanics is that they might stay home on November 6th in tightly contested battlefield races.
6. Noteworthy as this variant might be, what matters more is this: Will the fact of Kavanaugh, win or lose, motivate enough anti-Trumpers to cast ballots in the coming weeks? In a political climate as fluid and volatile as today’s, it’s too soon to tell.
WGBH News senior editor Peter Kadzis co-hosts The Scrum. You can follow him on Twitter @Kadzis.
