HylianSwordsman said:
Facts don't care about your feelings either though, and it's a fact that huge swaths of the population think he's a rapist, and it's a fact that this would damage the Supreme Court's reputation if he were confirmed, and it's a fact that the Supreme Court is a foundational pillar of the rule of law, and it's a fact that there are no consequences for Republicans' goals for the Supreme Court to just nominate another candidate so long as they're equally qualified, and it's a fact that Trump has a large list of such candidates. A person acting purely rationally and sitting in Trump's position would withdraw Kavanaugh and pick Amy Coney Barrett, because she's actually more conservative than he is, and nominating her would simultaneously prevent any further damage to the court's reputation, while also cornering Democrats if they're bluffing. You may feel this is unfair to men or whatever, but you know it's true, and facts don't care about your feelings. If Dems brought accusations against Barrett, they'd look like they really were just trying to come up with bogus accusations, and the public would just roll their eyes. In all likelihood, there would be no accusations and she'd sail through with multiple red state Dem votes just like Gorsuch did and become the conservative version of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, causing as much angst to liberals as RBG did to conservatives. The opportunity for Trump and Republicans is right there. They can get a more conservative judge, humiliate Democrats now, cause liberal angst for the rest of ACB's lifetime, and if Dems tried anything with sex crime accusations to stop her, they'd ruin their own reputation and cast enough doubt on the Kavanaugh accusations to give Republicans an excuse to nominate him for a future seat if Trump gets a second term (or sooner, I don't know). All it would take is for Trump to be a leader for 5 seconds and withdraw the guy. His base will follow along if he explains what he's doing and why. There's a clear conservative case to do this and you can bet if he laid out that case conservatives would follow him, and persuadable independents wouldn't buy accusations out of nowhere a second time, unless they were absurdly credible on a level beyond the Kavanaugh situation. All but the most hardcore liberals probably wouldn't believe it either, and if Dems don't try this tactic again, liberals might not like ACB but they at least won't feel like a rapist is on the court. The most important fact here is that whether you feel that a society should make all decisions based on purely emotionless facts or not, emotions aren't just a part of our society, they're fundamental to it. You can't separate them out like that. This is because of one emotion in particular, trust. Trust in the institutions that make up society are what keep a society from collapsing. If you undermine trust in a society's institutions, it will not remain a society, it'll collapse into chaos. The Constitution of the United States is just a bunch of meaningless words on paper if we don't trust it. The Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches are just labels we give to a collection of people and buildings unless we trust them enough to give authority to their words and actions. You can't just keep disrespecting the feelings of half of society over and over again and expect trust to remain, and that goes for both sides. Facts don't care about anyone's feelings, but trust cares about feelings, and society is built on trust. Good decisions are built on facts, sure, but it's a fact that emotions influence trust, and a fact that damaging the institutions of society is bad, and therefore a fact that maximizing trust in the institutions that uphold society will require accounting for the emotions of that society's citizens. It's not a black or white thing, of course, as nothing is going to make everyone feel great, and nothing is going to gain universal trust. It's a balancing act, and it takes skilled leadership to navigate that balancing act and lead a society to unite around a vision for those institutions that they can trust in. It's even more difficult in a time like today with society already divided so thoroughly and rigidly along partisan and ideological lines, but that's the reality we face. We're at a tipping point right now where too much more trust lost in our institutions could cripple or utterly destroy us, and it's not worth playing around with society's trust in the highest court in the land with the final say on every law. Rule of law depends on it.
Also, Kavanaugh wouldn't be harmed in any way by not being confirmed. He's a judge. With a lifetime appointment. Since he can't be tried for anything he's been accused of, his career is safe. His life won't be impacted any further than it already has whether you confirm him or not at this point. Likewise, he's already as defamed as he's going to get, unless more things come out, and confirming him won't protect him from that. Doesn't make sense to confirm him to "protect" him or his career, as it won't have that effect. |
Of course they will try to discredit Amy Coney Barret, she is a Trump-nominee and the democrats have pretty much decided any Trump-nominee will be unacceptable
