The Republican’s Federalist Agenda

Consider that the Republican agenda from before the Regan years has been to stack the court with arch-conservatives. They realized that even a balanced or right-leaning Supreme Court overturned law after law passed to promote their corporatist, Federalist, misogynist, homophobic, and racist views. Their sponsors, the giant fossil fuel companies, the pharma lobby, the mining and chemical companies, and the massive healthcare lobbies wanted fewer rules and regulations that cut into profits and the power to control workers. Their base wanted to use the federal government to look the other way as they returned to the days of Jim Crow politics and lynchings.

During each election, Republicans picked dog-whistle issues like, “family values,” gun rights or anti-abortion to fire up support for candidates who would nominate justices and to move their golden boy like Brett Kavanaugh into a SCOTUS chair. Kavanaugh had never tried a case as a law clerk, but his radical views matched those of their proposed agenda when Bush appointed him to the D.C. Circuit in 2003–but he was so vehemently opposed, he was not confirmed until 2006 after a backroom deal. Even then, he was seen as the most partisan candidate they had ever had to vote on. Many of those same Senators are voting on him this week.

Evidence now shows that the Republicans have known about Brett’s past for quite some time–probably since before 2003. Recent texts and other hard evidence shows he was gathering denial affirmation letters long before the hearings–before a single accusation had surfaced. He has a long-standing reputation as a spoiled, aggressive, abusive, rich-boy preppy, a sloppy drunk, and his yearbook reflects only a foreshadowing of a fundamentally flawed character.

But the Republicans in Congress and voters didn’t care–just as they didn’t care that Donald Trump was a real estate charlatan, a con-man, a buffoon, a misogynist, racist, serial adulterer, and an ignorant narcissistic liar who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the butt. They wanted a man they could manipulate, who would vote their way and do what he was told. They wanted a housebroken cocker spaniel in the Oval Office. They knew they could change the carpets later.

When Kavanaugh came before them again, they knew he had assaulted women on many occasions, but that didn’t matter.

They knew he had lied to Congress and to the FBI on many occasions, but that didn’t matter.

They knew he was as balanced politically as Trump but they not only didn’t care, they embraced the fact. They wanted a partisan pitbull to vote their way.

The Republicans also knew they had to ram through the nomination and get him on the bench. They would have to pull out all the stops–before the public found out the truth and blocked the move.

They also knew they were out of time. After the midterm elections, Republicans knew they would probably lose the House and perhaps even the Senate. And then they would be back at ground zero. They had to get Kavanaugh warming the SCOTUS bench now. Not next week when the court begins hearing critically important cases–Now.

The Republicans, knowing full well their future is unclear at best, want to leave a legacy of Federalism behind that can’t be erased by a government controlled by Democrats. They know if they can get Kavanaugh on the bench, every law to bring the nation universal health care, to re-enable the EPA, the FCC, the DOE, and the other tainted federal agencies, laws to raise the minimum wage and raise taxes on the wealthy–all of these could be overturned by a far-right-leaning SCOTUS. So they care about the midterms, but that’s not their end game. They want to screw over liberalism for four decades.

This nomination is not JUST about women’s rights and sexual abuse, and lying under oath, and what FFFF means, it’s about the future of our democracy.

It’s that important.