Courts

The 7 Worst Kavanaugh Takes I Could Find In 30 Minutes Before I Vomited

If you want to look at the trash without getting into the garbage, I've got you covered.

By Elie Mystal on September 17, 2018 12:59 pm

In X-Men, Bishop’s mutant ability allows him to absorb energy. It always struck me as one of the crappiest powers. Sebastian Shaw can absorb energy and turn it around, which seems useful. But Bishop’s power is passive. He can withstand punishment, but he can’t really do anything to the people who punish him. He’s useful on a team, but like only if Wolverine isn’t around. “Hey, Bishop, go eat a bomb so Cyclops doesn’t mess up his hair.”

In any event, here’s my best Bishop impression. Not everybody can go on right-wing Twitter and sift through all of the crappy Kavanaugh takes out there. But, I have that power. I can read bad take after sexist take after stupid take, without any of it affecting my brain chemistry. I can absorb an incredible amount of awfulness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a mutant and so all of these Kavanaugh stans are going to drive me actually insane, eventually. But I can put up with this trash better than you, probably. So… here are the worst ones I found before I had to retreat and heal.

Let’s start strong:

1.

https://twitter.com/Texican2018/status/1041686445969362945

This is kind of your standard, #MAGA crap. It didn’t happen and if it did, it doesn’t matter, and if it does, I don’t care. Obviously, what makes this take particularly rancid is the contention that Dr. Ford “was not injured.” Like… sexual assault only matters if he breaks your jaw?

Anyway, speaking of rancid.

2.

IMMEDIATELY! Yeah. Confirm Kavanaugh NOW before more accusers come forward. You can see here how Owens offers a bonus bad take. She could have stopped with the general blind support of the white-male patriarchy that has given her an entire career. But she couldn’t help going farther and calling the entire #MeToo movement a “witch hunt.” Normally I’d point out that the “witch hunt” rhetoric is wrong because witches don’t actually exist while sexual predators clearly do. But… Candace Owens might be scientific proof of the existence of actual witches.

3.

Personally, I find this to be the worst take. McArdle takes important issues (when should we charge juveniles as adults, how should we deal with juvenile offenders ), and bastardizes them and turns them into a patently stupid assertion that teenage murderers should be on the Supreme Court when they grow up. When she says this, McArdle knows that no person convicted of murder at 17 will ever be in a position to be nominated for the Supreme Court, so she’ll never be called on to back up this dumb take. McArdle is one of those people who counts on her audience being too dumb to understand exactly how she’s being awful. If you want an actually intelligent discussion about how your feelings on juvenile records might inform you opinions on Kavanaugh, check out this thread by Emily Bazelon. I disagree with Bazelon here: I think that whether or not a person should get promoted to the Supreme Court is a much different question than whether or not somebody should be allowed to work the register at Wendy’s. But Bazelon’s night terrors are probably more reasonable and grounded than McArdle’s seemingly-lucid takes.

4.

This is the most common alt-right hit job on Dr. Ford, pushed by all those who are looking for where Alex Jones went. They’re trying to say that Ford has it in for Kavanaugh because his mom ruled against her parents. It’s a particularly odd attack because a reasonable person might say “yeah, a high school student is probably not going to accuse a boy of attempted rape when his mom is a judge,” but we’re well beyond “reason” here. I used this version of the take because it leads with “Rate My Professor” which should tell you exactly how much the right-wing character assassination machine is reaching here.

5.

https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/1041672565117411329

Look, you can’t run the “Brett Kavanaugh is a changed man” defense unless he says he’s changed. And that would require Kavanaugh to be TRUTHFUL about the events of experiences of his life. So far, it doesn’t seem like he’s been willing to give a full recount of the kind of person he “was,” so there’s no argument that can be made that he’s “changed.” You MUST accept responsibility BEFORE you can receive forgiveness. That’s not law, that’s freaking catechism.

6.

I’ve written about why middle-aged white men are invested in maintaining high school as this “consequence-free” zone. I get why white men are in a “defensive crouch.” The thought of all their chickens coming home to roost must terrify them. But I don’t feel sorry for them. Minorities and women have always known that mistakes that you make in high school can have lifelong consequences. Then Venn diagram of people who think high school shouldn’t matter, and people who think unarmed black teens should get shot to death for not complying with the police, IS A PERFECT OVERLAP! And most of those people also don’t think we need strong penalties to protect people from revenge porn. Middle-aged white men don’t want high school to matter for them, but they’re completely happy revisiting the full slate of consequences upon women and minorities for any “youthful indiscretions.”

Maybe high school should be “consequence-free,” but I know Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t think so. Otherwise, he’d probably support a teenager’s right to choose.

7.

It’s going to make me so happy when Robert Mueller sends Don Jr. to jail.

All of these takes can go straight to hell as their authors are punted into the Sun. I need a shower.

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.