Imagine that you are applying for a job. Your prospective employer asks to see a resume, references and a cover letter laying out how your experience matches their needs. But you say to the employer, “I’ll give that to you, but only after you hire me.”
The employer would show you the door. Rightly so. That’s not the way getting a job works.
Unless, of course, you’re Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Republicans are rushing to get this guy confirmed before his records are released to the Senate. In other words, the GOP wants to give a lifetime appointment to a guy who hasn’t shown them his resume.
Oh no, Republicans say, “we aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary. This is TOTALLY NORMAL and Democrats are being whiny babies for wanting to properly vet Kavanaugh. It’s just not fair,” Republicans say. “We’d never do anything like that to a SCOTUS nominee named by a Democrat.”
Except that they did. Actually, what Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans did was steal a U.S. Supreme Court seat from President Obama. Merrick Garland should be sitting on the bench right now. Instead, we have Neil Gorsuch, nominated by Trump. And now we’re just one justice away from the very real possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade and scrapping marriage equality.
No wonder the GOP is all “damn the torpedos” on this.
It’s worth noting that crowding this travesty out of the news cycle is the release of fired White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s tell-all book. Trump’s busy calling her “wacky,” and a “lowlife” on Twitter, claiming that she can’t be trusted. Keep in mind this is a woman who has worked for him for many years, and that Trump claimed he only hired “the best people.”
As law professor and author Jennifer Taub wrote on Twitter, “Seriously? Trump hired Omarosa, Mike Flynn, Carter Page, George Papadopolous, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Rob Porter. Now he wants Senate Dems to blindly accept his nominee for a LIFETIME appointment to the Supreme Court for Brett Kavanaugh? No. Release the documents.”
But the GOP is like, “Nah, we’re good.”
People who for some reason think that the Republican Party has a conscience are often puzzled as to why so-called members of the Christian right have embraced Trump even though Trump is the epitome of all they’ve claimed to stand against over the years.
But this is it. The Supreme Court has always been the goal. And if Trump can deliver the Supreme Court to them, then he can literally do no wrong.
It should worry you that people who hate LGBTQ people can’t heap praise on Kavanaugh fast enough.
“President Trump promised a constitutionalist — someone who will call balls and strikes according to the Constitution,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ organization. “We trust the president that Judge Kavanaugh will fit this mold as a justice.”
By “call balls and strikes,” I’m pretty sure Perkins is making a thinly veiled reference to penises, because for Perkins, everything always comes back to penises. Specifically, gay penises. Those are his least-favorite kind.
Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage said, “With this nomination, the balance of power on the Supreme Court could shift dramatically in our favor. For the first time, since marriage was illegitimately redefined by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2015 Obergefell ruling, we have a clear path forward to restoring marriage to our nation’s laws.”
It bears mentioning that Brown is also talking about penises here, since he believes in one penis plus one vagina marriages only. It also bears mentioning that Brown would be super excited to see LGBTQ families torn apart and stripped of legal protections.
And so I ask you to call your senators. Call them and tell them that you do not want to see Kavanaugh confirmed. Tell them why. Tell them what scares you. You might not change their minds, but they need to hear from you.
Some pundits are saying Kavanaugh’s confirmation is a foregone conclusion, and that Democrats aren’t going to bother fighting this.
Well, the destruction of my family is not a foregone conclusion. Stripping a woman of her right to an abortion is not a foregone conclusion. And these things are worth fighting for. Demand that your senators fight. You too must fight. Don’t take your eye off the balls. And by balls, I’m making some kind of sports metaphor, obviously. But, hey, whatever motivates you to pick up the phone.
D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.