The world reacts to the Kavanaugh battle
The battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh has roiled the country and — yet again — highlighted the depth of polarization in American society.
By Ishaan Tharoor October 1 at 12:59 AM
-snip-
But it’s not just Americans who have been watching. My colleague Siobhan O’Grady charted the international response to Thursday’s hearing, which was beamed across the world.
Some found inspiration in the airing of sexual violence allegations in the loftiest halls of power. “I wonder if some day in India, in appointments to the judiciary, there will be a strict scrutiny of the nominee’s conduct and treatment toward women?” asked Vrinda Grover, a high-profile Indian lawyer, in a Facebook post. “Some day will indecency, sexual misconduct be the deciding factor in appointments to the judiciary?”
Others saw only a sordid mess. “I simply cannot imagine any country in Europe carrying out such a bizarre hearing, least of all one for all the world to see. It showed the U.S. in a very poor light,” a British reader wrote to the New York Times. “Some might say that it was at least transparent, but what it showed was a country massively at odds with itself and in no way fit to lead in the world.”
Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland saw in Kavanaugh’s defense the same “toxic masculinity” as that of President Trump, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte — who jokes about rape — and other right-wing populists around the world.
“It is a swaggering machismo that believes rules are for limp-wristed wimps; that in its most radical form places itself above the law,” wrote Freedland. “This phenomenon stretches beyond the partisan battles of Washington DC, beyond even the battlefield of sexual harassment: it is instead a core, if underplayed, aspect of the populist wave currently upending the politics of Asia, continental Europe and Britain.”
Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, a prominent Ghanaian lawyer, expressed his disbelief over Kavanaugh’s diatribe against the Democrats during his testimony. Kavanaugh, he told O’Grady, “failed the temperament test, also the independence of the impartiality test for me.” He also reckoned that a “cross-party consensus” in Accra would have nixed the candidacy of such a politically compromised judge.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/01/world-reacts-kavanaugh-battle/?utm_term=.ab091b482b51&wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1
= new reply since forum marked as read
And ridiculed with increasing frequency worldwide.
That shit is ending hopefully sooner than we think in our own country.
We have other issues to concern ourselves with other than getting mired in this muck.
