The Women’s March didn’t even know the name of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before they drafted and sent a press release on Monday claiming the nomination of “XX” marked a “death sentence for thousands of women in the United States.”
I, too, would fear elevating a person named XX to the high court, given that they sound like a science-fiction villain who would, in fact, be hellbent on slaughtering women en masse. But the group’s absurd [insert any GOP appointee here] template of doom takes on a certain symbolic significance as well, illustrating how hollow and reflexive the partisan fear-mongering will prove to be by the time this is all said and done.
As the Senate considers Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, it’s well worth remembering dire predictions made in the heat of past confirmation battles have fallen flat in the past.
On Nov. 20, 1987, the president of the National Organization for Women proclaimed that the confirmation of Anthony Kennedy would be a “disaster for women.”
“I’m here to say it is totally unacceptable for a sexist to sit on the Supreme Court,” said Molly Yard, making NOW the first major interest group to come out against Kennedy. The grounds for his alleged sexism were previous memberships Kennedy held in all-male private clubs.
Kennedy, of course, was not a disaster for women by liberal feminist standards (which basically boils down to legalized abortion). By the time of his retirement last month, the erstwhile justice was described in a New York Times report “as the linchpin of the judicial defense of abortion rights” who “frequently sid[ed] with the court’s liberals in turning back conservative challenges to Roe v. Wade.” That’s not exactly what NOW predicted with total confidence back in 1987.
All things considered, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict Kavanaugh’s nomination will not kill “thousands of women.” It’s just a hunch. You’d think that would be good news to the feminist movement, but hyperbole and fear-mongering are enduring features of their activism.
