Conservatives aren't afraid of Anita Hill redux: They know power matters more than truth

[DonViejo]

Republicans aren’t worried the Kavanaugh hearing will backfire, because in 2018 the facts almost don’t matter

AMANDA MARCOTTE
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018 8:50PM (UTC)

It was genuinely surprising, at least to most on the left, when the Republicans who run the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to hold another hearing next week to assess the accusation of attempted rape made by psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

There's no way, of course, that Republicans are legitimately interested in getting to the truth of what happened between these two people 30-odd years ago. As Democrats have pointed out, if the committee majority really wanted to do that, it would authorize a thorough investigation rather than rush through a hearing. So the only plausible conclusion is that Senate Republicans believe this course of action will somehow be politically beneficial to them.

At first blush, that calculation seems ridiculous. The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee come off as a bunch of smug white men, and they've already started to say ugly things about Ford. The likelihood that this hearing will become a spectacle of sexist condescension toward Ford is sky-high. Comparisons to the case of Anita Hill, who came forward during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, are flying fast and furious.

But there's good reason to believe that Republicans don't care if they come across as villains. This gulf between how conservatives and liberals view both the situation today and the Hill-Thomas hearings of 27 years ago is highly revealing. For liberals, empirical truth matters quite a bit. But for the right, the truth is irrelevant, or nearly so; the only thing that really matters is power.

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https://www.salon.com/2018/09/18/conservatives-arent-afraid-of-anita-hill-redux-they-know-power-matters-more-than-truth/

[madaboutharry]

1. This article is 100% true.

There is no doubt that not a single republican will read it or care what it says about them. The truth is not relevant. All that matters is power.