Elliot: Year of the Woman vs. time of the circus
Women in droves are running for office this year; somewhat fewer white males are trying to chart the course of the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies at his confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill Sept. 4, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)
September 25, 2018
So, this is the Year of the Woman. At least according to some, if not many, political watchers, this is the much-ballyhooed Year of the Woman because so many are running for political office.
I have to admit, my first reaction was Running for Office? Haven’t they suffered enough?
But of course I was just being facetious, and my doctor assures me that these fits of facetiousness will disappear as I come to fully realize the ugly horrors of modern life. She was quite certain.
RELATED: New allegations surface against Kavanaugh
So I applaud the record numbers of women running for public office (putting all snarkiness aside, maybe in Coralville, which deserves it). I’m not sure women in office will run things better than men, but just looking at history, there’s no way they could run things worse.
And I’m also happy that it appears there are many more Democratic women running than Republican women. We don’t need (well, I don’t need, just to be selfish) an army of Kim Reynolds clones carpet-bombing the landscape with the glories of privatizing Medicaid and issuing dire warnings to the quaking populace about “unhinged” liberals.
I’ve checked myself fairly carefully (it’s a trick with mirrors, but don’t try it in a Funhouse, because you’ll no doubt get arrested). To the best of my knowledge, I don’t have any hinges that could potentially become “un.” But then, I’m not a door.
It is intriguing, somehow, that in the Year of the Woman, two of the top stories in the ever-spinning news cycle (a terrible metaphor, suggesting news is type of tornado that just might destroy us all in in its spin cycle repeat) involve sexual assault. The stories, of course, involve Bill Cosby and Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
RELATED: Senate Judiciary Committee to take Kavanaugh allegations ‘step by step’
Cosby, as we know, is headed to prison for his crimes, as he should be; drugging women in order to assault them is particularly despicable. The only surprise in the Cosby case is that the “birther movement,” and its Grand Buffoon, didn’t try to paint Cosby as somehow having been born in Kenya as a secret Muslim.
Kavanaugh, on the other hand, seemed well on his way to being confirmed by the Senate to the Supreme Court until his nomination got caught up in the MeToo Movement.
That’s been a circus to watch. As the overbearing, white Republican senators who have seized power try to ram his nomination through a “deliberative body,” they get snagged by a couple of women with biting accusations (especially this year), so they have to try very, very hard to not seem like white, overbearing Republican senators trying to ram Kavanaugh’s nomination through. Ram it through yesterday, preferably.
That’s a whole other circus, the ramming through of Kavanaugh. You’ll remember, if your memory extends to 2016, that the Republican-controlled Senate did the exact opposite of ramming through the Merrick Garland nomination to the high court. The GOPers had to wait for the American people to speak was their excuse. Now, they’re trying to get Kavanaugh on the court as quickly as possible, before the American people can speak in the upcoming elections.
Apparently, hearing the American people speak no longer applies when it comes to right-wing justices.
Of course, if the American people could actually speak with their votes, the House would be more evenly divided, the Senate would be run by Democrats, and the Electoral College wouldn’t exist. Goodbye, Grand Buffoon, hello, President Hillary Clinton. Talk about Year of the Woman.
(According to vote tabulations, in 2016, 45.2 million Americans voted for Democratic Senate candidates, 39.3 million voted for Republicans. But each state, obviously, gets two senators no matter its population. No wonder the Senate is an undemocratic institution. In the House, the vote was closer: 56.3 million Republican, 53.2 million Democratic. And Clinton beat the Trumpster by at least 3 million votes.)
The Kavanaugh circus will continue Thursday. And the overbearing, white GOP senators have tried to find a way out of the bad optics when it comes to questioning Kavanaugh’s female accuser. They hired a woman attorney to do it.
