Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh clears crucial hurdle to confirmation
By
Eric London
6 October 2018
The US Senate voted Friday to close debate on the confirmation of Trump’s right-wing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by a 51–49 margin, as Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin announced their support for the appeals court judge. The final confirmation vote will take place Saturday.
Barring last minute theatrics, the cloture vote secures the confirmation of the arch-reactionary to what will be the most right-wing court in over a century. Kavanaugh’s confirmation will bring to a close an anti-democratic process from which the masses of people are entirely excluded.
With Kavanaugh on the court, the composition of the body will reflect the domination of the financial oligarchy over the political process like never before. Four of the nine justices will have been nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote (George W. Bush and Donald Trump). Including the two nominated by Clinton, six of the justices will have been nominated by presidents who received less than 50 percent of votes.
The Democratic Party opposed Kavanaugh not because of his political record as a supporter of torture, deportation, war and attacks on the rights of the working class, but based on uncorroborated, 36-year-old allegations of sexual assault that became the sole focus of the confirmation process.
From the start, the Democrats’ opposition to Kavanaugh was never intended to block his nomination. The Democrats fundamentally agree with Kavanaugh’s right-wing views. They offer no principled opposition to his hostility to the right to abortion, which the Democratic Party has abandoned as a political issue.
In an editorial board statement Friday, the New York Times…