Watching @FareedZakaria and wondering how anyone can look at Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson and see the Court as a protector of democracy. “Here are five concrete examples of Republicans screwing the country, and then a vague and unsupported assertion that Democrats are doing it too.”

People really think that misogyny crossing the political spectrum is a defense of their pointed dislike or burning hatred of Hillary Clinton. Some people really need to reckon with why they needed to destroy Hillary Clinton so much when the alternative was this.

The Democrats do not have the ability to do anything to Republicans here, and even if they had it would not have mattered because the GOP has the majority and has abandoned their human souls.

https://twitter.com/jackmirkinson/status/1048316562099359744

I mean literally the ABA is investigating Kavanaugh now. Assault survivors have cornered their representatives. We have no fewer than four lies (motive is easy to prove here) in Kavanaugh’s testimony in front of us. Amy Klobouchar pushed him hard enough that he shouted at her.

It is alarming how many reasonable people still support George W Bush. One of the most catastrophic mistakes in American history just behind Trump.

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1048377930794094594

Trump is just Bush on steroids. Obsess over “voter fraud”? Yup (AG scandal). Decimate the truth and block expert investigation to achieve desired ends? Yup (Iraq War). Leave thousands of Americans to die because of their race? YUP.

Just to be clear, there was enough evidence to preclude a vote on Kavanaugh. Anyone who said yes knew exactly what they were doing. And don’t act like getting the Senate is equivalent to a Court seat. These people were willing to excuse everything they saw from Kavanaugh and to ignore an unprecedented outcry all because the seat is priceless and anything that forced them to retool would sacrifice it.

This is not the correct take. The GOP backing down when they already have the majority is likely to demoralize GOP voters. It’s also likely to empower Democratic voters by telling them that pressure does work and they can prevent further assault on institutions.

https://twitter.com/davecatanese/status/1048283485948059648

Democrats win if they lean in and say that Kavanaugh was going nowhere because the Republicans couldn’t rally the votes. Heitkamp can lean on Murkowski and Manchin if the vote fails. Especially if the Republican from MT stays home.

As we watch the Republican Party use a one-vote majority to seat a credibly accused perpetrator of sexual assault to the Supreme Court, shout out to all the media men who discounted or diminished misogyny as a factor in Hillary Clinton’s loss! The good news is that your refusal to take misogyny seriously as a violent force in American politics and negligence in counteracting it have very few consequences outside of American women losing all bodily autonomy and being ruled by remorseless women-haters. Thanks!

Because they deliberately chose to do so rather than share with minorities this is not complicated and no one should have sympathy for them

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1047493530669789184

The very same midcentury consensus on resource allocation that is vocally praised by liberals and created the white middle class was both deliberately denied to black citizens and sabotaged once integration became a national priority. Only white people think this is coincidence.

So because white conservative women are such nightmares, we’re never going to talk about the Cool Girl Syndrome that characterizes a lot of white liberal women are we? Remember when there was a big to-do about how millennial women weren’t supporting Hillary because they didn’t think it was urgent/Bernie was so “cool”? Yeah how is that working out?

Disillusioned Republicans need to learn that no one owes them anything. Almost guaranteed, every one of you stayed too long. You’re just going to need to take a few L’s and vote for whatever Democrats want because your party and the “principles” they espouse are an actual trash fire and you’re such an electoral minority that you can’t influence anything.

The fact that we can’t accept the level of evidence we’ve already uncovered against Kavanaugh’s fitness because Republicans will refuse to accede to the truth is a real problem. Like, we’re out here acting like we need further confirmation of Kavanaugh’s unfitness for the court when it’s obvious as hell.

Look, today the Republicans are going to do a horrible thing. It doesn’t get less horrible because we expected it. It doesn’t get less horrible because the victims are imperfect. It doesn’t get less horrible because some of them seem agonized or they are nice to dogs. Republicans are people knowingly doing a terrible thing because they can. No one is forcing them. The alternatives are plentiful. They are fully aware that they are hurting millions of their constituents - today and in the future. But power.

Not going to pick on this specifically, but this happens with such regularity it is alarming: Republicans have agency and are in full control of their actions. Any other interpretation is victim-blaming.

https://twitter.com/GideonResnick/status/1045666353787662338

Yeah, I hate Avenatti and his loudmouth schtick. But he is not responsible for GOP Senators (even Flake, Corker and Sasse) voting for Kavanaugh. It messes with the narrative, but they are really choosing to do this of their own accord.

I legitimately feel like today was a collapse of government in a way that nothing since November 8, 2016 has matched. We watched a credible, incredible witness to disqualifying judgment, temperament and action from a man to be appointed to the highest court in the land. And it did nothing.

There are so many squishy takes on Kavanaugh from former-GOP, reluctant-GOP, and the bothsides media pundits who want to be taken “seriously” when they walk into the club, so a thread explaining why the GOP is holding onto this nightmare scenario. First: they’re power-hungry. This is a chance to shift the court for generations, and it’s unlikely that the next nominee goes with less scrutiny or is through before the midterms. If you want to put a GOP operative on the court, this is the shot.

This entire thread is basically handwringing over whether we’re being too extreme in opposing fascists.

https://twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status/1044744163097497601

There are thousands dead in Puerto Rico from neglect. Our government has separated children from their parents with no system to reunite them against ratified international law (which is supposed to hold the same heft as our Constitution).

Republicans are literally saying that they don’t care how credible Dr Ford is because even attempted rape won’t stop them from putting Kavanaugh on the court. For years, liberals have said that the GOP is singularly interested in acquiring power, not any kind of principle or governance. Nothing validates us more than their behavior in this moment.

Huh, I guess we know what Kavanaugh was doing in those 9 hours at the White House.

https://twitter.com/EdWhelan123/status/1042392539129622530

Hatch basically said, “Give me a story I can believe,” and realizing that Dr Ford is highly credible, Kavanaugh and his friends got to work on a theory. That explains this Kathleen Parker op-ed.

https://twitter.com/edwhelaneppc/status/1042402881842958337?s=21

If nothing else, the Kavanaugh confirmation saga makes clear that our system is not well-built and will not endure much longer. This man is going to be given a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court with the votes of only one party who represent less than half the country - and shrinking.

I am well known on this platform for arguing in good faith but I am real close to cancelling men. There are so many ignorant-ass takes on assault and trauma, and a refusal to even try to understand why Dr. Ford has acted as she did, or why her accusation is credible. No empathy. Are cismen fundamentally broken?

So to make this farce obvious: if Kavanaugh is such a good nominee and this is such a farce, what’s the harm in letting it play out? Why not let the Dems get caught chasing a ghost? Why not eradicate every argument against him? An FBI investigation not only would spare GOP Senators the optics of a bunch of hostile men interrogating a woman (or worse, getting their women staffers to do so), but make it impossible for Democrats to contradict their findings.