Overplaying their hand on Kavanaugh

When a woman accused Brett Kavanaugh of groping and attempting to rape her in the early 1980’s, it was a powerful story that could have derailed his nomination. But the Democrats decided that they were going to pile on this story with ever more ridiculous and outlandish allegations, and the absurdity of the other allegations damaged the credibility of the first one. That may have saved Kavanaugh’s nomination.

First, we heard that Kavanaugh exposed himself and put his genitals in a woman’s face at a college party over 30 years ago. The woman was by her own admission drunk at the time, and said that her memories were unclear for decades. The memories became clear just as Brett Kavanaugh was about to be confirmed to the Supreme Court and had been accused of sexual assault. Well, that is certainly convenient. It was a weak allegation at best, and caused people to suspect Christine Ford’s allegation.

But the Democrats were not done. A creepy porn lawyer trotted out a ridiculous claim that Kavanaugh had been involved in a string of gang rapes, where women were drugged at parties and then repeatedly raped. Men would line up outside bedroom doors waiting for their turn to rape an unconscious woman. It sounds like something out of a movie: Charles Bronson would then break up the ring and leave the men in a prison, walking away laughing while the other prisoners savagely gang rape the leaders of the rape trains.

This was the breaking point for a lot of Republicans, who began to see this as an absolute farce. Even if we were to hypothetically argue that Ford’s allegations were true, the outlandish allegations harmed her credibility and hardened support for Kavanaugh on the Right. Considering that Kavanaugh might be the vote to overturn Roe v. Wade (you should not pin your hopes in that, though) the stakes were too high for many Republicans to not support his nomination. Had the drunken college party and the even more absurd gang rape allegations never been made, Democrats may well have succeeded in derailing Kavanaugh. By going over the top, they killed their own plan.