By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
The attempted political assassination of Brett Kavanaugh
is bad for the country, but good for a Trumpian attitude toward American
politics.
The last-minute ambush validates key assumptions of
Donald Trump’s supporters that fueled his rise and buttress him in office, no
matter how rocky the ride has been or will become. At least three premises have
been underlined by the tawdry events of the past couple of weeks.
First, that good character is no defense. If you are John
McCain, who genuinely tried to do the right thing and carefully cultivated a
relationship with the media over decades, they will still call you a racist
when you run against Barack Obama.
If you are Mitt Romney, an exceptionally earnest and
decent man, they will make you into a heartless and despicable vulture
capitalist, also for the offense of campaigning against Obama.
If you are Brett Kavanaugh, a respected member of the
legal establishment who doesn’t have a flyspeck on his record across decades of
public service in Washington, they will come up with dubious accusations of
wrongdoing from decades ago when you were a teenager.
Second, that the media is an unremitting political and
cultural adversary. In the Kavanaugh controversy, the press has been wholly on
the other side, presuming his guilt and valorizing his accusers and their
supporters, including Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono, whose most famous
contribution to the debate was telling men to “shut up.” The advocacy isn’t
limited to cable networks or the Twitter feeds of journalists. It reaches all
the way up the food chain.
The New Yorker
— which imagines itself an upholder of the finest standards of American
journalism; which sports a refined monocle-wearing dandy as its mascot; which
was once edited by that famous paragon of editorial care, William Shawn —
happily published a new accusation against Kavanaugh even though the accuser
herself had doubts about it (she only became convinced of it after days of
consideration and talks with her lawyer).
The New York Times
passed on the story when it couldn’t find any firsthand corroboration of it. The New Yorker didn’t allow that to
become an obstacle.
Third, that politics isn’t just rough-and-tumble; it’s
red in tooth and claw. Process and norms are nice, but they go out the window
as soon as something important is at stake, like a potential fifth vote on the
Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Senate Democrats may delicately talk about the importance
of norms and civility on Sunday shows, but watch how they act. They sat on an
accusation throughout an extensive process of vetting and questioning a
nominee, then declared it dispositive evidence against his confirmation when it
leaked at the eleventh hour. They delayed a hearing with Christine Blasey Ford
long enough to allow time for the second accuser to be persuaded to come
forward.
All of this plays into Trump’s support. Surely, a reason
that the president appealed to many Republicans in the first place, despite his
extravagant personal failings, was that they had decided that virtuous men
would get smeared and chewed up by the opposition’s meat grinder, so why be a
stickler for standards?
If Trump’s attacks against the media are over-the-top and
sometimes disgraceful, at least he understands the score.
He may not be a constitutionalist, but he will be
faithful to his own side, and fiercely battle it out with his political
opponents.
The logic of this dynamic is risky. It can be
self-defeating, and lead down the road of supporting, say, a Roy Moore, a kooky
candidate doomed even in red Alabama. It can be corrupting, if character and
standards are no longer considered important. But the dark view of our politics
that has driven the Trump phenomenon for three years now is impossible to
gainsay. Who can watch the frenzied assault on Brett Kavanaugh and say that
it’s wrong?
No comments:
Post a Comment