Kavanaugh - the revolutionary justice phase of the #MeToo movement has now ended


It is not an exaggeration to say that the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh by the United States Senate as a US Supreme Court justice is the equivalent of the defeat for Senator Joseph McCarthy in the McCarthy/US Army hearings (also before a US Senate committee) between April and June 1954. McCarthy was a political opportunist (and, if memory serves, a drunk), who, as everyone knows, exploited the anti-communist mania in the US after WW2. He terrorized people and destroyed lives and careers, including, famously, in Hollywood, and, until the US army stood up to him, got away with disgraceful and outrageous behaviour. Inevitably, someone will always come along and stand up to a bully. You would think that McCarthy would have known better than to take on the US army but he had already, if memory serves, destroyed the career of the US Secretary of State, General Marshall (of Marshall Plan fame). Marshall had been Eisenhower’s boss in WW2 and had helped his career but President Eisenhower didn’t lift a finger to help Marshall when McCarthy went after him. So, McCarthy thought he could do it again but he met his match in the hearings against the army and McCarthyism gradually faded away. It didn’t happen overnight but an ugly period in US history ended effectively after McCarthy lost a row with the US army.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation will, I think, turn out to be an event of similar importance to the McCarthy/Army Hearings. It was inevitable that the #MeToo movement, which is a revolution of sorts and an understandable one, would be accompanied by a period of revolutionary justice (no evidence of sexual misconduct needed). It was equally inevitable that the screaming screamers and the crazies would go too far. (They are now blaming white American women for Kavanaugh's nomination and saying that they should not marry "within the race" to preserve white domination. You couldn't make it up.) And it was inevitable that a major political party (in this case the Democrats, in the 1950s the Republicans) would jump on the bandwagon.

The #MeToo movement will continue, and with considerable justification. Women have the bit between their teeth and are not going to put up in the future with what they had to put up in the past. I don’t have a problem with that but after Saturday's vote an accusation will no longer be the same as evidence. It took a brave man and a savage contest to face down the bullying but from now on more people will. A university lecturer, who, say, gives a student a bad grade and is accused of a sexual assault will be more inclined to stand his ground as will a falsely accused priest and so on.

In time the Democrats will come to realize that kangaroo courts and revolutionary justice are no substitute for justice. Senate committees (and any venue, including universities, the church, business, etc. where these kinds of problems arise) will presumably sit down and look again at the rules they operate for dealing with accusations of sexual misconduct. To start with, the accusation against Kavanaugh should not have been entertained because it was known to the Democrats for weeks before they raised it. They waited until they thought that by raising it at the last minute they would derail the confirmation procedure. That sort of unscrupulous behaviour must be stamped out. Likewise, allegations should not be accepted unless accompanied by prime facie evidence to go with the accusation. An accusation is not evidence. You would think people would know that but at a time of hysteria people are liable to forget basic rules.

I hope Dr Ford, who may now face a difficult time, realizes how she was used by the Democrats and I hope others don’t allow the same thing to happen to them. Politics is, at times, a dirty business. Politicians are capable of behaving in a crude and cruel way and of generating casualties in pursuit of their aims. Ford will probably suffer more than Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is the wicked one here. Ford will hopefully realize that asserting her life had been destroyed, when, happily and plainly, it had not been, was never going to fool anyone. She acted badly and unwisely and made a fool of herself. That is what can happen to people who get tangled up with politics and don’t realize how dirty it can get.

There will be a lot of talk in the coming days about the backlash that will be faced by the Republicans in the mid-term elections. The opposite could be the case. A lot of women in the US were beginning to worry about what could happen to their husbands and their sons if the revolutionary justice of the #MeToo movement was not checked. The question being asked by many women in the US was that if a man of Kavanaugh’s eminence could be destroyed for political purposes could the same thing not happen to their husbands and sons? Very few people would be able to muster the support of the President of the United States and the majority party in the US Senate if they were accused of sexual misconduct. They could be (and many have been) crushed. The IT-style narrative is that the US was divided between (wicked) white males and the rest on the Kavanaugh nomination but I don’t believe that. So, we will see whether the confirmation results in the expected heavy defeat for the Republicans in the mid-term elections or if the scandal of the hearings and the behaviour of the Democrats changes things.

I hope Kavanaugh’s first overseas visit as a Supreme Court justice is to Ireland. Maybe an eminent lawyer or an eminent academic here will invite him to address the Bar Council or the L&H in UCD or the Hist in Trinity or some such. The screaming screamers (and the Irish Times) will no doubt demand that Kavanaugh be disinvited. Which might just wake people up to the bullying that is going on here.

Ruadhan MacCormaic’s article in Saturday's Irish Times is interesting and by the IT standards of recent days fairly balanced. He is right to say that the reputation of the US Supreme Court has suffered in recent years, particularly as a result of their decision to hand the Presidency to George W. Bush, the worst US President in our lifetimes and quite possibly ever. MacCormaic says that US Supreme Court judgments are not cited by courts outside the US nowadays. I can’t argue with that as I don’t know if they are or not but if Roe V Wade is re-opened by the US Supreme Court that will echo around the world. Which is why the Irish Times is so angry. They are in fact scared. Just as the rest of the world was beginning to think again about abortion we disgraced ourselves by inserting a right to abortion into the Constitution. The attempt to prevent Kavanaugh reaching the Supreme Court was all about Roe V Wade, and everybody knows that.