It is no news to say that Donald Trump is transactional. The compendium of his entire life’s actions have been things that ultimately or proximally benefit him, and the Supreme Court nomination is no exception. Scalia’s vacancy was a corrupt inheritance used to get Trump elected, Kennedy’s retirement was a suspicious arrangement that installed a majority, and Bader Ginsburg’s passing was a heartbreak used to cement a travesty. To lament that this is another quid pro quo is to say that the Donald is exhaling CO2 again— well yeah, of course he is, that’s what he does.
If we were living up to ideals, a nominee to the Supreme Court would be selected on the basis of character, integrity, faithful jurisprudence, neutrality, honor, and perhaps above all, conscientiousness. (For that matter, those and and many other characters should be the deciding criteria for all 3 branches, but I digress in the mythical land of Shouldbe.) The court would be and could be a majority of moderation, with the tails of extremity those of a bobcat rather than a serpent. But we’re not in Idealville, we’re in Trumpland, and the entire GOP has purchased timeshares there with most all of the empty and lofty promises of the introductory presentation falling flat, except for the steak dinners on someone else’s dime.
The transaction for the Court was simple: Trump will pick a candidate that will be most attractive to the extremes of the basest of the base to maximize election capital, and the GOP majority will confirm the candidate regardless of qualification, so long as they can legally do so. As to Barrett, while she has to sit through hearings as a matter of procedure since her appointment is a foregone arrangement, the past few days are evidence that she doesn’t really have to tell the whole truth or reveal anything of substance; the quo of a seat on the high court that she gets is for the quid of being pleasant and not saying anything that will be a present liability for the GOP and the election.
Which is why we should recognize these hearings for what they are: a formality “for the purpose of transacting business” (as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Quorum Rule III.1 specifically states), and moreover a public grandstanding platform for the GOP to get some desperate airtime to prop up their desperate campaigns. They are most determinedly not to ascertain whether the candidate is a worthy choice as a Supreme Court justice lifetime appointment, as nothing which is asked or said in that hearing is going to undermine the transaction.
That being determined, the primary objective of letting the American People know what they are almost certainly going to get with this justice and the ensuing court tilt should be what drives the Democratic interrogatives. As already suggested by others much smarter than I am, rhetorical questions for the permanent and public record should be the substance of what takes place in the remaining days, so that all of the illegality, mendacity, and corruption of the public trust can be brought to the forefront in summary and irrefutable form, all at what could be the most critical juncture in the country’s history. We don’t have to like it, but if we begrudgingly accept that this is the arrangement, the best we may be able to do at this point is maximize the comeuppance we can muster with the national and visible platform, as Senator Harris in particular has so effectively done.
One last observation on truth versus honesty; I’m sure that most of Barrett’s answers may be honest, in that she truly believes, through rationalization or conditioning, that which she actually says. Which is also why she refrains from answering, outside of her transactional agreement: if she doesn’t say something that is demonstrably untrue, which can be refuted by facts, then she has not lied under oath and has done little or nothing for which she could be held accountable. Truth is a reflection of what is objectively factual in the world. If she believes something to be the truth, that doesn’t make it true, it just makes it her belief, which guides her future actions. Which is why one’s beliefs are relevant, as a guide to the future. They just won’t be coming out in these hearings, as that wasn’t pArt of The Deal.
May the Truth set us free of the present nightmare on November 3rd.