Daily Times

The recently concluded confirmation process of new US Supreme Court judge, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, may go down in American history as the day centrist politics died. Shall we call it the Donald Trump effect? The danger of charismatic leaders like the current US president tacking to extreme positions on either side of the political spectrum is the creation of an equally toxic counter-narrative.

And this narrative, whether from Occupy Democrats, Black Lives Matter or #MeToo, silences the moderate voices of reason that want to more effectively advocate for disadvantaged groups instead of using the media focus to forward their personal agendas in the guise of social justice.

Though usually steeped in protocol, Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings quickly turned combative and emotionally charged in late September when Stanford University Professor Christine Blasey Ford brought forward a decades-old sexual misconduct charges against the nominee. Subsequently, in attempts to uncover the “truth,” Democrats made a mockery of the one thing that makes any society just: supremacy of the law and the equality of all citizens before it.

At this point you must be asking yourself, why should we care about America’s domestic problems? Because despite its diminished international clout following the Trump’s administration’s clarion call of “America First,” the US still controls many of the world’s dominant financial institutions and collective defence pacts, not least the UN Security Council.

Consequently, the signalling effect to friends and foes alike from distinct shifts in American domestic politics is immense.

Since World War II and its pursuant “new world order,” the foundation of a rules-based system has been continuity in American foreign policy irrespective of the incumbent president’s personal biases. This is the only way a unipolar world could function.

But everything changed under Trump two years ago as he steadily yanked the US back from major multilateral treaties on climate change, trade, immigration and refugees etc.

Yet prior to the Kavanaugh controversy, the international community numbed by Trump’s impulsive approach to diplomacy saw Congress as a reliable rear-guard to rein in his most manic moments. Today, however, with the legislature split right down the middle and alarmingly prone to partisan chants over problem solving, that leash is off. Therefore, the new “normal” emerging from the Kavanaugh confirmation may be one where international relations are an exercise in fire-fighting and not proactive engagements.

America’s allies like Germany may henceforth focus more on lobbying specific caucuses of Congress, particularly those representatives with “safe” constituencies, than throwing their weight behind a president whose flights of folly will likely be trashed by his successor. Conversely, America’s foes like Iran will comfort themselves in the knowledge that Trump’s tantrums are temporary and all they need do is hunker down and bide their time.

Such turmoil in a global rules-based order creates the kind of geopolitical balkanization that prevailed before the two great wars of the early twentieth century.

Returning to my original point, it is regrettable that Democrats conveniently sidestepped a principled stand on the Kavanaugh sexual misconduct charges, and instead politicized the hearings to mobilize anti-Trump voters for November’s midterm elections.

Two events are particularly problematic: the nature and timing of Ford’s accusations and the letters a collective of American law professors sent Congress declaring Kavanaugh’s unsuitability for the Supreme Court.

I usually give short shrift to most Trump pronouncements but in a recent speech laden with sarcasm, he succinctly summed up Ford’s testimony: “What neighbourhood was it in? I don’t know. Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs, downstairs — where was it? I don’t know — but I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember.”

The social litmus test here is simple: If the gender roles were reversed and it was a man accusing a powerful woman of sexual assault before the Senate, would it remotely trigger the level of public outrage we saw in Kavanaugh’s case?

I wager no. The man’s testimony would be swiftly dismissed as another attempt by the misogynistic right to prevent women from climbing to the top of their professions. The nominee herself would overnight turn into a crusader for the cause of oppressed females everywhere with scant scrutiny of the allegations against her.

Though usually steeped in protocol, Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice quickly turned combative and emotionally charged in late September when Stanford University Professor, Christine Blasey Ford brought forward a decades-old sexual misconduct charges against the nominee

Patriarchy is clearly a major stumbling block in the pursuit of gender equality. However, attempting to topple it through gross generalizations sets the troubling social standard that men are guilty until proven innocent whenever sexual matters are in play, even if consensual.

Next, had Kavanagh been privy to a fair trial in the state of Maryland where the attempted rape allegedly occurred in 1983, any presiding judge would have thrown out this case for exceeding the statute of limitations since the state categorized sex crimes as a misdemeanour in that year, not a felony.

And for argument’s sake, even if we apply the so-called “discovery rule,” Ford’s retroactive accusations still fail the applicability criteria as the harms from sexual assault should have manifested immediately and not a decade later.

Lastly, the American law professors that characterized Kavanaugh as “intemperate” in their letters to Congress, presuppose a bias against liberals that insults the American legal system’s time-honoured process for promoting jurors up the ranks. All the more since Kavanaugh’s track record over 12 years as a Court of Appeals judge does not in any way suggest he will allow personal opinions on social issues to cloud his judgments in the Supreme Court.

And even with a conservative bent, the US Supreme Court consists of nine judges that do not answer to any party. Liberal scaremongering hence gives Kavanaugh far too much credit for the damage he may wreak as a judge on the top bench. More importantly, if American law professors themselves are cynical about the impartiality and independence of their justice system, then they have far more pressing concerns to deal with than Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The main question American politicians and jurors must ask themselves today is: Of what use are “fundamental” civil liberties like equality before law if they don’t apply to everyone?

The writer is an Ipoh-based independent journalist

Published in Daily Times, October 11^th 2018.