When I was nine years old I landed flat on my back on the water from a five meter diving platform. I knocked the wind out of myself. I was trying to do a flip. The sound I recall when I slammed against the water is something around an aggressive high-five, that distinctive thwap that lets you know something is being celebrated with enthusiasm or, in my case, something has gone terribly wrong and you will spend the next 30 seconds drifting to the edge of the pool, wondering if you’ll ever breath again, and regretting all of the terrifically important things a nine-year-old can regret.
That sound resonates in my mind as it will resonate with Christine Blasey Ford.
I landed on the water on my back because I didn’t commit to the flip. Lack of confidence. I committed halfway, and halfway is where I wound up. In other words: not a flip.
A few months ago, Blasey Ford climbed to the top of a five-meter diving platform. She looked over. She tried to flip. She sent a letter to ranking democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Diane Feinstein by way of Rep. Anna G. Eshoo’s office, saying she (i.e. CBF) had been sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh when they were in high school. According to the involved members of congress, CBF also requested anonymity. That was late July 2018.
In early October 2018, Kavanaugh was confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court of the United States of America because he, more than any other justice in our land, was qualified for the position in a way that will ensure the fragile threads connecting the Great American Conscious survive on blind righteousness and precedent and logic for generations to come. Just kidding; throughout his hearing process and the testimony given under oath by Blasey Ford, we learned Kavanaugh was a classic dude-bro who was born into opportunity, who was raised on male privilege, who earned maybe nothing in his entitled little life, who fundamentally lacked the measured demeanor, emotional fortitude, moral wherewithal, immunity to influence, ethical compassion, argumentative creativity, social charisma, rigorous decisive standards, and basic understanding of legal precedent and constitutional law that should be requisite for a person ruling on categorical Rights and Wrongs for the greatest nation in history.
That we know all this about Kavanagh is fucking scary. It’s the difference between jumping out of a plane and jumping out of a plane after you’re told there’s a 30-percent chance the chute won’t open. And it’s Blasey Ford’s fault we know this side of him.
Let’s step back for a moment. Blasey Ford has known this about Kavanaugh for a long, long time. It’s been her burden. It’s affected her life in psychologically indelible (although she’s mistaken about how memory works, neural pathways, storage, recall, etc.) ways. By writing her letter to congress, she tried to warn the world that the man nominated may not be the man the world saw. This was her duty. This was right. Her goal should not have been — and I don’t suspect it ever was — to postpone the senate hearing process so the republican’s nomination could not be seated by the time SCOTUS returned in October. Her goal was to tell the world: be careful. By requesting anonymity, she didn’t commit to the flip. And she landed. Thwap!
By requesting anonymity, Blasey Ford allowed herself to become a variable in the senate democrat’s game of postponement. Chuck Schumer and Feinstein didn’t give a shit if Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Barrett or Donald J. Duck is nominated by the republicans; democrats simply wanted revenge for Merrick Garland. They used Blasey Ford to try to exact that revenge. The gambit was, as we now know, an enormous failure, resulting in the seating of a man with the terrifying aforementioned credentials to a governmental appointment that will last, who the fuck knows, maybe fifty years.
It’s not Blasey Ford’s fault that we’re jumping out of the plane. But it’s her fault we know the chute might not open.
Listen: If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you don’t like me. Shitting on both sides of an argument is not a great way to make friends. Well, okay, let’s wrap things on a more positive note, then: all is not lost.
On two accounts is this true: Frist, Brett Kavanaugh isn’t the proverbial devil. He may not be our “best and brightest” but he’s good. Will he make mistakes, sure. Will he be a little douche, perhaps. Does it sting that Donald Trump is a bad loser and a worse winner, yeah. Is Mitch McConnell going to heaven, probably not. Things are going to be okay.
Second, there is — as there always is — a lesson to be taken from Christine Blasey Ford and her abuse at the hands of not only Brett Kavanaugh, but also at the hands of the democratic heavyweights in the U.S. Senate. Commit to the flip. Stand. Speak. Believe. Believe. Believe. For the love of God, when you get to the top of that diving board and look over the edge, believe you’re going to flip, call attention to your flip, don’t think maybe. If you’re at maybe, turn around and climb back down the ladder; fold the letter to your congresswoman and throw it in the trash. Maybe isn’t going to do it. Maybe is going to hurt. Trust me, I can still hear that thwap.