It’s a rallying cry being heard (and repeated) across the Right-Wing Propagandasphere:
Ah, yes. Remember the Alamo. Remember the Maine. Remember, Remember the Fifth of November. And, now, Remember the Supreme Court Nominee who was credibly accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.
Confirmation hearings for Biden nominee to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, began this morning, (3/21/22), with Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa leading the opening-statement way for Republicans:
“”Good news […] we’re off to a very good start,” Grassley said Monday. “Unlike the start to the Kavanaugh hearings, we didn’t have repeated choreographed interruptions of Chairman [Sen. Dick] Durbin [(R-Ill.)] during his opening statements like Democrats interrupted me for more than an hour during my opening statement on the Kavanaugh hearings.”
Or there was Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, (who was one of only three Republicans to vote for her appeals court confirmation last year), using his own opening statement to bitterly reminisce: “When we say that this is not Kavanaugh, what do we mean? It means that Democratic senators are not going to have their windows busted by groups. That’s what it means.”
“It means that no Republican senator is going to unleash on you an attack about your character when the hearing is virtually over,” the South Carolina Republican continued. “None of us, I hope, have been sitting on information about you as a person. For weeks or months, you come into our offices and we never share it with you to allow you to give your side of the story.”
But the richest attacks on Judge Jackson have come from the Right’s most zealous misleaders—like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley taking a favorite Republican tactic and selectively mining her past rulings to support, (you guessed it), the QAnon conspiracy claiming liberals are a cabal of child abusers. The Washington Post published this article, on March, 19th, highlighting exactly how Hawley is willfully misleading his constituents with this Fake News.
Hawley:
“I’ve been researching the record of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading her opinions, articles, interviews & speeches. I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children. Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”
Also Hawley:
Rebuttal:
“These were not the guidelines for the defendant. They were 37 to 46 months, which means Jackson sentenced the defendant within the guideline range and above what probation recommended (36 months).”
Yet, unsurprisingly, others in the Right Wing Propaganda machine picked up Hawley’s lead and pushed it forward.
Despite that:
So, it might be their Alamo. Their Fifth of November. Or maybe it’s simply another disingenuous opportunity to push the same (false) culture war narrative that raises their profile with the siloed Republican base.