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By David Futrelle
So what exactly are we to make of Brett Kavanaugh’s anger? Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee began his testimony this afternoon in something close to a boiling rage, presenting himself as the innocent victim of a vast and improbable conspiracy, angrily denouncing those who, he said, had destroyed his reputation beyond repair.
As the afternoon progressed, he repeatedly interrupted his questioners and defiantly repeated a series of scripted non-answers when the questions cut too deep. His anger seemed contagious; by the end of the day his Republican supporters — most notably South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham — were breaking out in veritable tantrums in the Senate chambers.
So what is going on here? Is Kavanaugh’s rage a conscious strategy, or simply a reflection of who he is?
Let’s consider four possible explanations — starting with what I think is the least likely one.
Kavanaugh is displaying the righteous rage of the falsely accused
As Jeet Heer noted in The New Republic, Kavanaugh’s sometimes furious, sometimes tearful “performance won plaudits from conservatives and right-wingers, who see him as an injured party,” including such, er, luminaries as Donald Trump Jr., the National Review’s Rich Lowry and even (reportedly) the president himself. An op-ed in the right-wing Washington Examiner declared Kavanaugh’s anger to be “clear and righteous.”
Of course, if you believe Christine Blasey Ford and/or Kavanaugh’s other accusers, as I do, you have to conclude that this interpretations is utter bullshit. So let’s move on to what I think are the more plausible explanations:
Kavenaugh is pretending to be angry in order to convince people that he’s innocent
If a display of “clear and righteous” anger is enough to convince many that you really are innocent, what’s to stop a guilty person from pantomiming righteous rage? Guilty criminals do it all the time. “[I]f Kavanaugh is telling the truth … he has every right to be thunderously angry,” wrote Robby Soave on Reason.com. “If Kavanaugh is guilty, his goal is to appear innocent, and thus it would not be out of place for him to sound angry. ”
Kavanaugh has deep anger issues and cannot help himself
In this interpretation, there is nothing strategic about Kavanaugh’s fury; it’s just who he is. A deeply entitled white man from a wealthy background who is used to getting his way, he cannot help lashing out at anyone who challenges him or stands in his path. If this is indeed the root of his rage today, it not only adds credence to what his accusers have said about his behavior; it also suggests he’s temperamentally unsuited to serve as a judge on any level, much less on the Supreme Court.
But there is another possible interpretation that seems to me even more likely than these last two.
Kavanaugh, adopting a strategy of many domestic abusers, has learned how to use his anger to get his way — and is now using it to try to bulldoze himself onto the highest court in the land
In Why Does He Do That (Amazon affiliate link), his invaluable guidebook to abusive men, domestic violence expert Lundy Bancroft notes that abusers’ angry outbursts are often far more strategic than they appear on the surface — even violent tantrums. (Bancroft notes that abusers tend to smash things that belong to partners but rarely their own property.)
As Bancroft sees it, abusers don’t abuse because they have an anger problem; they are angry because they are abusive and entitled. In this interpretation, Kavanaugh isn’t angry because he’s innocent; he’s angry because he believes he should be able to get away with the sort of things that in a just world would have sent him to jail.
He may be so used to using anger as a way to control and intimidate those around him that he has no idea how what it looks like when he throws a tantrum in public. Or maybe he thinks he can get away with it. Because he very well might.
Even Kavanaugh’s longstanding habit of telling blatant, easily disprovable lies may be in part an abusive strategy of gaslighting, an attempt to force his “reality” onto others. In testimony today, Kavanaugh asserted that he hadn’t even bothered to watch Ford’s appearance before the Senate this morning; reporting from the Wall Street Journal seemed to suggest that he had. On Twitter, Slate senior editor Sam Adams said he thought that Kavanaugh’s gaslighting on this issue was more an “assertion of power [than] an attempt to be believed.”
It’s all very Trumpian. Which is probably why Trump was apparently so pleased with his performance today.
Whatever the explanation for Kavanaugh’s behavior today, it’s not a good one. He’s manifestly unfit for the job, so much so that a Supreme Court with him on it would instantly lose all legitimacy. Putting this belligerent, abusive narcissist on the court will throw this country into a constitutional crisis, and one that will be damned near impossible to resolve.
I’ve taken to calling him Judge Poopyface, because that expression he keeps making reminds me so much of kids who are definitely old enough to be toilet-trained pooping their pants out of spite. And why do they do it? To manipulate their parents (usually their moms) into giving in to them and babying them more than their age would warrant.
It’s definitely NOT because they’re actually incontinent, though.
This article in Daily Kos expands on your fourth point, David:
Kavanaugh’s opening remarks are a master class in a common sexual abuser defense tactic
by Wagatwe Wanjuki
Just another mediocre, entitled man trying to make himself the victim. of a “vindictive” woman — even though she first told her story in 2012.
I mean being real if Kavanaugh is confirmed there is no reason to hold the decisions of the Supreme Court in anything other than contempt. And not just the legal concept of such, that they have no standing. His presence as part of that body would make that body contemptible by the more standard definition. It’d make any decision from them while he’s on it not even worth reading, and certainly not worth giving the weight of law.
He reminds of someone who thought I deserved what he dished out to me. It took me time and some self cutting to realize no, nobody deserved that. Stuff it, Kavanaugh.
I think there’s a fifth explanation, and it’s kind of the one I find most credible, I think he was drunk during his hearing. If what folks say about him is true, he’s a high-functioning alcoholic, and his performance today seemed like he tied more than one on. I wouldn’t be shocked if it came out in the next few days that he checked into rehab.
*quietly adds on to her growing list of World’s Most Slappable Faces, which already includes Paul Ryan, Martin Shkreli, and Lord Dampnut and spawn*
Two from column A, one from column B . . .
I’d say it’s the self-righteous, calculated fury of an enraged abuser.
Brett K and the Republican members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary say that because the “ranking member” of that committee (she who shall not be named,* possibly because she’s a woman, and they don’t want to look like they’re beating up on a woman, which they would never, ever do) sat on the letter from Christine Blasey Ford for weeks — time that could have been spent having the FBI investigate Blasey Ford’s accusations — that now they can’t take the time to have the FBI investigate Blasey Ford’s accusations.
*Dianne Feinstein
It’s the rage of someone who’s used to getting his own way. More than that, who can barely conceive of not getting his own way.
Oh shit, I hope his wife isn’t in the habit of falling down stairs and standing on rakes and wearing long sleeves in hot weather and dark glasses indoors.
I mean, he does seem to have had (at least from 17 to his 30s) the attitude that women are his toys and he can break them if he feels like it.
About anger as a tactic: during training to work with ex-offenders, years ago, we were told that anger management classes (a hot new idea back then) worked well for some, but for others made them much more dangerous, because they learned to manage their anger as a tool to achieve their own ends, which were seldom positive for the people around them.
Kavanaugh is doubling down. It was still open to him (theoretically) to say that clearly a terrible thing happened to that woman, but she was mistaken about who it was. Just about.
I wouldn’t have believed him, but the senate committee would have jumped at it – any excuse.
Instead this parade of wounded entitlement: how DARE anyone question his precious integrity? And Graham and others hop on it.
Women voters, take note: these people are not your friends.
Yeah, we I look at Brett Kavanaugh… I’m starting to understand how the temperance movement took off.
In happier news, former hockey rivals Gillian Apps of Canada just married US National Olympic Team Captain Meghan Duggan!
This is the second marriage between former Canadian/American hockey rivals, after Julie Chu and Caroline Ouellette married and had a child last year.
I hope I’m not alone in wishing to see this trend continue. Come on, Sid, I want to see you settling down with Phil Kessel!
Why is “He’s innocent and angry at the accusation” even on this list?
Like, I know it’s possible, but the implication is that this was her plan six years ago, when she was revealing this to her therapist. Privately.
If this dude had a shred of brain in his rattling dome he’d withdraw and go back to pulling sweet paycheques for pretending to be a credible authority. But no, he thinks he deserves this job, it’s his by right, and these women are rising up from his past to steal what’s his. I’m sure he thinks that he’s earned this position by his “lifetime of service,” and that bitches be gold-diggers. I hope his mother and wife saw exactly what sort of a spoiled, thrashing child he is.
Hubris, a hell of a drug.
Now Jeff Flake has said he’ll vote to confirm Kavanaugh, because of course he fucking will.
Mad Men, or Madmen – the one change this needs.
It’s absolutely disgraceful how willing and obvious he was about perjuring himself about minor things that don’t even fucking matter. I’m not surprised that the Republican senators are letting him get away with it, but it’s disheartening to watch someone perjure themselves on live TV and know that they’re going to get away with it.
IOKIYAR.
@Moggie
Now we’re stuck with seeing if Collins and Murkowski will say no.
Collins will vote yes. She can always be counted on to waffle and grandstand for attention, then do the wrong thing.
This is an absolute disaster. It’s the final nail in the coffin of democracy. With Kavanaugh’s confirmation, all three branches of US government will be controlled by far-right Kremlin puppets corrupted by greed and kompromat. Trump will get rid of Sessions after midterms and install yet another puppet as AG (probably Graham) who won’t recuse himself. Mueller’s investigation will go nowhere. His report may never even see the light of day. The upcoming Gamble v. United States case will kill off any hope of indicting Trump at the state level. And of course, nothing will be done about election meddling and gerrymandering. Even if the Dems do manage to take back Congress, the Republicans now have a permanent firewall against Dem legislation. Every law Congress passes can simply be challenged and overturned by a judiciary that is 100% on board with the Kremlin, white supremacy, misogyny and corporate interests.
The IC might have won this fight with an independent judiciary, but with Trump/McConnell stacking the courts for the last 20 months, that hope is fading fast.
I don’t think the blue tsunami is going to make any difference. It might slow things down a little, but we’re 50 years too late. The Republicans got too big of a head start while Dems were snoozing at the wheel. I can’t shake this feeling that Trump will be the last president, and within 10 years America is going to be totally unrecognizable.
This country has fallen so far, so fast.
The one small hope is that we’re now having national dialogues about things that were unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago. This is the same incandescent anger that fueled the labor movement, the anti-slavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement. Women have always been hugely instrumental in social reform. If we do take this country back, if we’re ever going to return to the rule of law, it’s going to have to be at the local level, inch by inch. The federal institutions are lost to us for now. We’ve got to get over our inertia and our distaste for power and understand that if we don’t put ourselves in positions of authority, Republicans will. If we don’t stand up and volunteer to make the rules, others will do it for us. The left wing, especially people on the margins of society, need to be better represented within law enforcement and the judiciary. There should be a pipeline to support progressives in applying for law school, journalism, and criminal justice programs. Dems need to contest every single seat, at every single level, and GOTV. It can’t just be one blue wave. It needs to be a series of waves: 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024.
The Republicans have one hell of a seawall right now. But given enough water and time, eventually even a seawall crumbles.
It’s worth noting that ‘righteous indignation’ seems to be particularly a tactic among the evangelical crowd. Appearing righteous is more important than actually interacting with reality. It’s part of how they work to maintain their bubble.
That similarity between this and above descriptions of abuser tactics is left as an exercise for the reader…
Another possibility that was floated yesterday is that he really did it, but just doesn’t remember because he was so drunk at the time. His emotional outburst may arise from the fear that a real investigation would prove Dr. Blasey Ford’s account.
@Buttercup
Take heart. America survived a bloody Civil War. It will survive this, whatever happens.
There’s two quotes that always come to mind whenever things seem dire. The first is the late military historian John Keegan speaking on the advent of nuclear weapons in the old Walter Kronite series War and Civilization:
The other is from Charlie Chaplin’s famous speech at the end of The Great Dictator:
I suspect that yesterday will have wide-ranging ramifications, from a renewed spotlight on frat culture, to massive Republican losses in the midterms. The clips contrasting Kavanaugh and Ford are going to be shared for years to come and Dr. Ford will be spoken of in the same breath as Anita Hill, the name that left Clarence Thomas damaged goods. Which is what Kavanaugh will be if he’s confirmed. Damaged goods. No doubt, he’ll be the good right-wing lapdog and continue to tarnish the reputation of the court with hideous decisions that will hurt a lot of people, but every single one of those decisions will have the name of a guy who in the minds of the average American is a sexual assaulter attached to it.
Their world is closing. And they know it.
I think Bill Clinton used the same righteous anger tactic when he got caught for sexual misconduct, didn’t he…? Fooled the lib fems that time… why wouldn’t it also work for this guy …?
@Mick, if you paid even the faintest attention to women you’d find that, almost unanimously, Billo Clinton is loathed with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.
I know you’re trying to play the gotcha-game here. You’d think after all this time you’d be better at it.