Political Extremism: Kavanaugh Accusations
Fritz Stephey reflects on his initial, perhaps flawed reaction to the allegations of sexual assault faced by SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
When word filtered out in the news earlier this week that an anonymous letter was submitted to Senator Dianne Feinstein making allegations that a younger Brett Kavanaugh (when he was somewhere around age 17) had committed a rather vile act of sexual assault, I am honestly upset about my first thought on the matter. I thought, “Well isn’t this convenient.”
I should have never thought that because that is a little more than belittling and demeaning to the accuser. Regardless of some of the extreme lengths we have seen during the Kavanaugh hearings, mostly from what I can tell were people wanting their 15-seconds of “Blue Wave 2018” fame, I should not be so pre-judgmental about a severe allegation.
It takes a lot to say that, in this day and age. People often do not come out and say “I was wrong.” We’ve seen that filter down from multiple politicians, pop culture icons, and even the average person who is convicted and sentenced to prison for a heinous crime.
Granted, I never tweeted that thought out, nor posted it on social media. I try to think twice about the initial response I have to one line of information before doing that anymore. My initial Twitter statement came after Christine Blasey Ford revealed herself to be the anonymous source:
There is a whole lot to break down with the recent #Kavanaugh information but I'll leave these quick notes until I can go deeper:
— Fritz Stephey Podcast (@FritzQS) September 17, 2018
1. Chrstine Blasey Ford is making an accusation. I'm not in to picking apart things like "how long" it took her.
2. Even not picking apart how long it was, it is something to consider in terms for Kavanaugh. Right now, its one accuser, one instance, when he was 17.
— Fritz Stephey Podcast (@FritzQS) September 17, 2018
3. That doesn't take away from the fact that if there is truth to this allegation, it is serious, because she experience it.
4. Does that play a direct impact on there here and now? I don't know. I may think that if there was an established history of Kavanaugh doing this, but if there were he might not even have made it to where he's at (or maybe that is wishful thinking).
— Fritz Stephey Podcast (@FritzQS) September 17, 2018
More will develop.
Shortly after I tweeted this, reading into more breaking news on the situation, I did realize something rather peculiar: thanks to a toxic political environment, we have become further divided by this story.
How so, you may be asking? Because I have seen multiple threads, heard multiple commentaries, and talked to multiple different people on the issue. And here’s been my takeaways:
- If you do not give Ford the immediate benefit of the doubt, people look down on you.
- If you mention that allegations are not facts, people automatically think you’re ok with the alleged behavior.
- If you think both parties should testify, you’re advocating for Ford to get raked over the coals.
- If you try writing off Kavanaugh’s alleged behavior due to his age, you’re hypocritical
- If you suggest that Kavanaugh remains innocent until proven guilty, you’re part of the problem.
Now I’m not stating that everyone is having exchanges like this, but this is some of the interaction I ran into. I also ran into statements from ABC’s Matthew Dowd who tweeted:
Enough with the “he said, she said” storyline. If this is he said, she said, then let’s believe the she in these scenarios. She has nothing to gain, and everything to lose. For 250 years we have believed the he in these scenarios. Enough is enough.
— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) September 17, 2018
I see this a lot today, and I believe it is creating a very fragile environment that we may want to think twice about. I retweeted Matthew’s comment with one of my own:
I'm sorry, Matthew. We live in a system where you remain innocent until proven guilty. It doesn't always work, but it is the fairest of the systems to ensure the accused is actually guilty, rather than just give the accuser the benefit of the doubt and assume the accused guilty. https://t.co/r9O0rtsTot
— Fritz Stephey Podcast (@FritzQS) September 18, 2018
That statement from me did not even cover the fact that the “nothing to gain, everything to lose” argument doesn’t stand well when several big cases against men have come into the limelight well after the damage and prison time was inflicted finding that the accusers lied, whether through their own admittance or through new evidence finding. That’s why I have been so big on trying to remain sympathetic, but neutral, and not standing on a hill ready to crucify Kavanaugh, nor trying to delegitimize Ford.
This is where we now stand: Truth, in this matter, probably won’t ever be found out. The alleged incident happened some 30 years ago, as of yet there haven’t been additional accusers or other incidents alleged, the FBI already stated that they do not make any judgment regarding credibility or significance of allegations.
I really want to qualify that thought by saying this:
I take Christine Ford’s allegations seriously.
That does not automatically make Brett Kavanaugh guilty.
If there is truth to Ford’s statements, my mind has severely changed on my outlook of Kavanaugh, which wasn’t picture perfect in the first place, especially in terms of his judicial record surrounding the 4th Amendment, among other stances and views he carried.
But in all reality, all of this probably does not matter anyway. I think the damage to the case of Brett Kavanaugh is already done. It has become a “damned if you do; damned if you don’t” situation, and some people are happily taking a front row seat to either see Kavanaugh go down in flames or Ford go down in flames, and really both are going down in flames, and the media is dumping gasoline on the fire.
