“The partisan strife in which the people of the
country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development
of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.”— American
short story writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), on election
campaigns, in his “Prattle” column, Nov. 8, 1884
No truer demonstration of Bierce’s observation
exists than the controversy over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to the Supreme
Court. The only thing that both sides seem to agree on is that his confirmation
today by the Senate has opened a new vein of ugliness in American politics.
Each side might insist that it did what it had to
do, but neither really covered itself in glory. It will be impossible for the
Democrats to escape the suspicion that it waited until the last minute to
introduce Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against him, after they saw taking
his nomination apart on the basis of ideology, as with Robert Bork, was gaining
no traction. At the same time, the GOP showed, by not even bringing to a vote
the nomination of Merrick Garland, that it had no scruples at all when it came
to power politics—quite simply, they blocked any action at all on him because they could.
For the foreseeable future, I think we are going to
see confirmation votes almost as razor-thin as this one. The whole process has
become consumed by “partisan strife”—and strife over single issues, at that. I’m
afraid that it will take a disaster for the two sides in Congress to talk to
each other again.
We are not a better nation after all of this.
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