New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is not handling Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court hearings very well. He was in full hysterical mode in his Friday column, the subtly titled “Kavanaugh Will Kill the Constitution.” Text box: “The legitimacy of the Supreme Court is on the line.”
....Unless some Republicans develop a very late case of conscience, they will vote along party lines with the full knowledge that they’re abdicating their constitutional duty to provide advice and consent.
....
No, the real difference from the tax bill story is that last year we were talking only about a couple of trillion dollars. This year we’re talking about the future of the Republic. For a Kavanaugh confirmation will set us up for multiple constitutional crises.
Krugman demonstrated his typical calm reasoning:
After all, if Kavanaugh is confirmed, we will be trying to navigate a turbulent era in American politics with a Supreme Court in which two seats were effectively stolen. First Republicans refused even to give President Barack Obama’s nominee so much as a hearing; then they will have filled two positions with nominees chosen by a president who lost the popular vote and eked out an Electoral College win only with aid from a hostile foreign power.
Would a Justice Kavanaugh conduct himself with the caution appropriate to such a fraught situation? Well, miracles of personal redemption do happen. But it’s very unlikely. On the contrary, every indication is that if he makes it, he and his fellow justices will abuse their power at every level.
Besides being somehow complicit in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's political maneuverings that blocked Obama's Supreme Court choice, Kavanaugh can never be forgiven for working on Ken Starr’s investigation into the many misdeeds of Bill Clinton. And then Krugman piled on the labeling.
Meanwhile, Kavanaugh accumulated a record as an appellate judge -- one that places him far to the right on everything from the environment, to labor rights, to discrimination. His anti-labor views are especially extreme, even for a conservative.
You know he means business when he brings out the Russian insults:
So who is Brett Kavanaugh? If he looks like a right-wing apparatchik and quacks like a right-wing apparatchik, he’s almost surely a right-wing apparatchik. Which brings us to the coming constitutional crises.
Krugman really likes that “right-wing apparatchik" insult.
He again made the radical claim that Trump had stolen two Supreme Court seats.
There’s every reason to believe that a court including Kavanaugh would strike down everything elected officials tried to do. Policy substance aside, this would destroy the court’s legitimacy, making its naked partisanship -- based, again, on two stolen seats -- clear to all....
Last month, Krugman ranted that if the Republicans keep the House and Senate in November, "that democracy really could die...." and the intervening period has rendered him no less paranoid.
