Writing in Slate, Dahlia Lithwick calls out Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee (excepting Senator Booker) for failing to support Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as Republicans pummeled her, berated her, distorted her record.
She writes:
I wrote earlier this week about the utter failure on the part of Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats to connect this hearing to what is going to be a catastrophic series of progressive losses at the Supreme Court this term, and the almost staggering inability to lay out any kind of theory for progressive jurisprudence, or even a coherent theory for the role of an unelected judiciary in a constitutional democracy. My colleague Mark Joseph Stern wrote today about a broadside attack on the whole idea of unenumerated rights, substantive due process, and the entire line of cases that protect Americans from forced sterilization, indoctrination of their children, and penalties for using birth control, and afford them the right to marry whom they want. More mysterious than this coordinated GOP project to undermine LGBTQ rights, marriage equality, contraception, and abortion—again, none of this is new or shocking—was the almost complete silence from Senate Democrats on these issues of substantive due process, privacy, and bodily autonomy. On the simplest level, the hearing might have been an opportunity to explain why Roe v. Wade is in fact the tip of the constitutional iceberg; that the same doctrinal underpinnings at risk in this term’s looming catastrophe of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could lead to existential losses of countless other freedoms. But the hearings were framed as if Republicans stand to lose the court and the midterms, while the Democrats behaved as if the future of the courts, the Senate, and democracy itself has no bearing on what happened inside the Senate chamber.
I understand that the decision was taken to just get the nominee confirmed. Take the win. But for those of us watching and waiting to see Democrats support and back the nominee, there was an immense sense of underreaction. Jackson looked alone fending off the QAnon smear brigade for much of these hearings because she was alone, at least until Sen. Cory Booker took it upon himself in his last colloquy to offer up a powerful corrective to the hatred being leveled at her, and to remind us why love can be an equal and opposite reaction to fear.
If we can all agree that the purpose of this charade for Graham is to try to flip Sens. Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, and that for Sen. Ted Cruz the purpose of this charade is to goose his own Twitter mentions, and that for Sen. Josh Hawley the purpose is to take what was a fringe “endangering our children” smear campaign last week and push it to the GOP mainstream today, it’s manifestly clear who the real pornographers are this week. But if we can all agree what the GOP agenda has been, I remain utterly mystified by the Democrats. They have the votes to confirm. They are about to irrevocably alter the course of American history. So what are they afraid of?
Chairman Dick Durbin’s inability to control some of the most shocking bullying and abuse from Cruz, Graham, Tom Cotton, and Hawley left observers speechless. At some point, you need to just start gaveling. But there was also a pervasive sense of Democratic senators’ almost chilling unwillingness to go to the mat for their nominee, who was being savaged by Cotton, who called her “not credible,” and Graham, who berated her with the claim that he was sparing her from being bullied like Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
Take my word for this one thing: If you have been subject to abuse, bullying, and intimidation, what you really don’t need to hear from people in power is that they think you are “brave,” or that you’re modeling perseverance and grace. What you really want is for someone to stand beside you and take a punch—or throw one. Yet beyond a handful of such moments, and notably Booker’s final speech, virtually everything Democrats did felt insufficient to the moment. More than that, it felt inexplicable.
Judge Jackson did NOT need anyone to “stand beside her and take a punch.” She handled it all on her own. GOPee’s, Durbin and the Lily-Livered, Craven & Cowardly are now CLEARLY seen for who they are and for who they are NOT. Job One is to get her on the BENCH. Later for the rest of our Troubles.
She was breathtaking. One looks at the likes of her and thinks, there is hope for the human race.
KBJ knew that she would be skewered. You can tell that she knew what the line of questioning was going to be (we all did). Her answers were rehearsed and measured. It was the plan. Democracy here is already a mess and add in what’s going on with Ukraine….Dems didn’t need to start a fight (they likely have the votes). Does Dahlia Lithwick not see the long game or is she just throwing out red meat for click bait?
Dick Durbin is my US Senator. He is a good Liberal Democratic who makes Illinois proud. 😁🙂
Well said, Eddie!
I can’t comment on my US Senator? ☹️
Representation matters, and Democrats appear to be oblivious to the idea. Americans watch the hearings, and what they see are Republicans attacking without much response from the Democrats. It makes the left look weak and disengaged. We know the hearings are little more than political theater, but the Democrats fail to understand the optics of the situation. Voters are watching what they say and do. Democrats seem oblivious to the importance of impressions to voters. Politics are a game of strategy that Democrats seem not to grasp along with effective messaging.
I agree, retiredteacher (2 retired teachers: a dangerous duo!). A huge part of the reason that the mask mandates were lifted at IL public schools (& kudos to the CTU for sticking to their guns: they filed a complaint w/the IL Labor Relations Board & narrowly lost, 3-2; & now we’re going to see the results of that: more Covid cases found, these the BA.2 highly contagious variant) & school boards voted to repea, even those not involved in the complaint: the most VOCAL people–the ones who showed up to their school district’s board meetings–were anti-maskers. Squeaky wheels get the oil. Indivisible has–& rightly–advised people to SHOW UP & to SPEAK UP.
In these cases–as well as the SCotUS Hearings–silence is NOT golden. Cory Booker most definitely is NOT my favorite (Newark P.S.), but he did right by Judge Brown Jackson. Dick Durbin’s my Senator too, Eddie, but he is in charge & he most certainly should have pounded the gavel..
Booker is not my favorite either. He’s mostly a corporate shill. Though he was mayor of Newark at one point, he grew up in affluent Bergen County where his parents worked for IBM.
Democrats could have had a positive moment during the hearings if they had stood up to the Republican bullies. America was watching, and it was a missed opportunity to gain votes. Impressions matter.
“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is
well qualified to serve on the
High Court.”
“The court now has 6 conservatives
and only three liberals. Judge Brown
would not change that uneven balance.”
“Often these hearings become sort of
kabuki theater,” observes NYU law
professor Melissa Murray.
“The senators get to play out various
soundbites that are later repurposed
and repackaged” for a larger audience.
“But the hearings were framed as if
Republicans stand to lose the court
and the midterms, while the Democrats
behaved as if the future of the courts,
the Senate, and democracy itself has no
bearing on what happened inside the
Senate chamber.”
Gosh, if all this kabuki clairvoyance
worked, would secular stagnation of
the dispossessed exist?
Ha. Well said, NoBrick.
And what will those despicable Rs do when/if Matt Gaetz is indicted and convicted of trafficking of young women?
Sent from my iPhone
>
There are too many elected Republicans that are hard core extremist fascists trolls and autocrat lovers to stop them with words.
Anyone that even attempts to stop their insane rants will just end up getting more.
Don’t feed the trolls. The media should ignore this verbal fascist/racist insanity and let the nut cases rant in a sound insulated echo chamber where no one outside hears them.
“Anyone that even attempts to stop their insane rants will just end up getting more… Don’t feed the trolls.”
My sentiments exactly.
I would love to see a Democrat engage them on the 9th Amendment, which directly speaks to unenumerated rights. Roe, Obergefell, Loving, Griswold, Eisenstadt. Lawrence all hang on that amendment and its application to the states via the 14th Amendment.
True conservatives, who fear an over-reaching government, should be the first to applaud those decisions. Of course, people have the inherent, self-evident right to decide who to marry or not, to decide who to love or not, to decide whether to have children or not.
Bork said the 9th Amendment is dicta — there aren’t any unenumerated rights. Somehow that passes as “originalism.”
True conservatives, who fear an over-reaching government, should be the first to applaud those decisions.
yes
Lithwick’s impression of the hearings was not mine. I was perfectly happy with the measured and appropriate contribution of Democrat Senators. The contrast was there for all to see. As for Durbin, the main sound/ video bite he got out of it made Cruz look like the utter fool he is. A handful of moments where Dems stood beside her and took/ threw a punch, plus Booker’s wrap-up suits me dandy. Jackson stood up to would be abusers/ bullies/ intimidators with energy and aplomb.
This post from Slate reminds me of some articles and many more thread-commenters (NYT & WaPo) warning direly that Republicans seem to know how to play chess better than we do, that we look weak, gotta get out in front of them, blah blah blah. Statesmanship is what I want of my Democratic representatives, and that’s largely exactly what I get. Those who see Dems looking “weak” seem to admire the lockstep Rep votes resulting from fear of MAGAS “primarying” them– that just makes them all look like MAGAS. It suggests even that they admire the lie-based vitriol that keeps the lowest voter-element in their camp. Would they prefer us to get down in the mud and punch it out in like form?
Dimocraps doing as Dimocraps do. Nothing new.
Thank you for posting this article. I was so upset, as a woman, at the interrupting and bullying! I thought the Dems were not good upstanders and Dick Durban was a very weak chair. It’s like they were intimidated by the loud, offensive attack style, like they didn’t want the bullies to turn on them. Are they still suffering PTSD from Jan 6? Maybe they didn’t want to be called something for taking sides with a Black woman against a white man. I don’t know. It’s true that Judge Jackson kept her cool and her dignity, making her look more than worthy to wear the robes of a Supreme Court Justice. But what kind of men allow other men to badger and insult a woman right in front of them and don’t even call it out for what every woman knows it was?
I watch a fair amount of CSPAN ‘gavel to gavel coverage,’ and that’s what these guys do, day in and day out. Not all Reps—some of them are very good in committee meetings, or when listening to testimony by ordinary Americans. But the gang noted here, plus Jim Jordan and Chuck Grassley and a handful of others are over the top all the time. And a large chunk of the rest use every time they’re on mic to begin with a few mins of attack-speech, leaving themselves maybe a minute to ask a real question. I sense it’s become such a habit with them that they’ve lost perspective on how this comes across to the mass public watching excerpts of this type of hearing: they’re used to performing for their rabid politicophile base who watch daily.
It’s very dispiriting. I’m wondering if this day and age of Instagram/ tweets et al suggests we should take the cameras and mikes out of Congress & Senate altogether.
I’m wondering if this day and age of Instagram/ tweets et al suggests we should take the cameras and mikes out of Congress & Senate altogether.
I respectfully (very respectfully) have to disagree with you about this one, Ginny.
what every woman knows it was
Nailed it.
As I was watching, I didn’t have the impression the D Senators were failing to support her. I though Corey Booker’s effusive tribute was fantastic & well-expressed, but many other D’s demonstrated other, less explicit, but still very effective ways to support Judge Jackson by asking carefully focused questions the answers to which permitted her to cite points & statistics that rebutted the cherry-picked criticisms of R questioners.
Mr. Booker’s praise was a great morale-booster, but the studiously directed questions of the other D’s served the practical & necessary purpose of entering into the record a full perspective on the points raised by R’s, such as asking in how many child-porn cases she had been in line with prosecutor recommendations, or pointing out that sentencing guidelines in the law had been written before the Internet drastically changed the landscape of porn distribution. Mr. Booker’s entry wouldn’t have been as striking if it had been just another in a series of “let’s go, team!” cheers. There was definitely a place for both modes of using the question time.
So well sai, Lenny, & exactly my impression.
Thank you, bethree!
The Democrats are still playing by the rules, decorum, etcetera.
Those on the other side of the aisle threw out the rulebook when they chose Trump as their nominee. There are now no rules.
The Democrats better catch up.
What exactly do you mean, Christine– Democrats should ‘catch up’ by throwing out the rulebook, too
You and Ginny are two of the most consistently thoughtful and reasoned observers among the many such who contribute regularly to the blog of my candidate for greatest living American, Diane Ravitch. I suspect that Christine doesn’t really mean that there are no rules now–for example, that we have entered a post-truth era–but rather that it’s time we stopped playing so nice-nice and be more forceful while at the same time adhering to our core values. I cannot begin to recount the number of times when I have wanted to reach through my screen and throttle some sense into a Democrat in some debate who is waxing wonkish and not calling out, in the strongest terms, utter lies. Endless debates about healthcare, but I’ve never heard one of these Democrats say, “Look. Stop lying to people. We are the only democracy in the world without a universal healthcare system, and ours cost twice as much per person and has worse outcomes. Why? Because half of every dollar we spend on health goes into your fat cat donors’ pockets. And you know this as well as I do. So, you are just lying.” And I’ve never heard one of these Democrats say, “Look. Economists know that immigrants create demand, which creates jobs. They need haircuts. Someone get paid to cut hair. They go to the grocery. They create jobs for grocers. JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. Economists have studied this. And it’s Econ 101. So, they aren’t ‘taking your jobs.’ That’s just BS,a nd you know it. You are lying to stir up race hatred. And you know this too.”
The R’s have set a tragic example of what happens when people let go of their ideals; the last thing we should do is follow their path. Though I disagreed with many of John McCain’s political positions, I respected his unwavering morality, & recall his comment about the US condoning torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib & Guantanomo:
“It’s not about them, it’s about us”.
The question today for those of us who retain the values embedded in the principles upon which the US was founded is not, “Do these Republicans deserve to be treated with the same hostility & disrespect as they treat us?” but, “Do we deserve to become like them?”
The discussion here is really interesting.
I have been a fan of Dahlia Lithwick’s writing for decades now, but I believe she underestimates how the Democrats are always between a rock and a hard place where they are constantly under barrage no matter what they do because the so-called liberal media is on bended knee to prove to conservatives that they will give as much critical coverage to the Democrats as they will to the Republican party which has completely abandoned truth and embraced the “anything in service to victory is good because might makes right.” The party that elected and still takes their marching orders from Trump – the foremost purveyor of the birther movement – has modeled their behavior after him and the media will still prominently bend over backward to present “both sides” as equal.
So, given the circumstances, the Dems made a choice – but as the comments here demonstrate, there is no “right” choice. There are two choices that could have both bad and good outcomes. I think the Dems restraint will probably mean that Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed, which is the goal.
I also think this does not preclude the Dems from making the Republicans’ bad behavior and attacks on Brown Jackson an issue once she is confirmed. I hope they do that in the run up to the election, getting out the vote by making voters extremely angry at how the nasty and racist Republicans kept heaping ugly lies and abuse on Ketanji Brown Jackson and the only way to get them to stop is to get out and vote them out of office. It could help win some Senate races to get voters riled up to vote in November – the contrast between the ugly Republican and the calm Democrats.
That would be easy to do if the media helped Democrats push their narratives the way they always help Republicans push their dishonest narratives. Journalists would be asking every Republican candidate running for Senate every day to strongly disavow the behavior of the Republicans (thus making Republican voters mad). It would be a weeks long story, prominently played, with these headlines:
Senate candidate xxx won’t disavow ugly Republican attacks on Brown Jackson.
Many voters concerned that Senate candidate xxx won’t disavow ugly Republican attacks on Brown Jackson.
Will the extreme voter concern that Senate candidate xxx won’t disavow the ugly Republican attacks on Brown Jackson hurt him in the race?
Did big donors influence Senate candidate xxx’s refusal to disavow the ugly and nasty lies his Republican Senate colleagues keep launching at African American women?
More voters becoming concerned about Senate candidate’s xxx cowardice when asked to stand up for what is right.
Senate candidate xxx is not able to assuage the doubt many voters feel about his truthfulness.
Trust is becoming an issue for Senate candidate xxx, who won’t disavow Republican lies and nasty behavior toward Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Will strong voter distrust hurt Senate candidate xxx?
Is there any way that Senate candidate xxx can ever recover from the distrust so many voters feel about him now?
and of course last headline:
Senate candidate xxx loses, exit polls find voters cite “distrust” and “cowardice” as the reason they didn’t vote for him.