Newly appointed United States Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh is a superbly awful choice for the most powerful court in the nation. During his Senate hearing he threatened the Democratic Party directly, proving himself a completely non-impartial juror. Kavanaugh’s use of the phrase, “What goes around comes around” during his Senate hearing also seemed to hint at malicious future intentions and partisan anger. His yelling and ranting about his image and his alcohol consumption before that same panel perfectly illustrated how he lacks the temperament necessary to sit on the high court. Additionally, his views on executive privilege and the fact that he doesn’t believe a sitting president can be indicted for a crime are unbelievably problematic. These valid criticisms of Kavanaugh apparently don’t matter in the slightest to the US Senate. Some of you might be surprised that I have yet to mention the multiple allegations of sexual assault and rape that have emerged against Kavanaugh. At this point, maybe rape simply doesn’t matter to the Republican Party. It sure looks that way.

I’d be tempted to laugh if I didn’t feel so much like crying. The president who boasted of sexual assault on record has fittingly nominated a man credibly accused of rape and sexual assault who doesn’t believe presidents can be prosecuted, and both of them fall under the protection of the party which professes to espouse ‘Christian’ and ‘family’ values. The accused rapist and the confessed misogynist have chosen to ally themselves with one another. I’d say such a situation was ironic if it didn’t fit so nauseatingly well into a well-established pattern.

The feckless and callous conduct of the Republican establishment has left the Supreme Court a neutered and feeble thing, incapable of impartiality. This judicial sham started in early 2016, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings to fill the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. This cynically self-interested move left the Supreme Court short a seat for over a year, and the moderate justice nominated by President Obama was never given a Senate hearing; the seat he might have filled was instead given to Neil Gorsuch, the constitutional originalist appointed by Trump. Now, after weeks of vitriolic debate, an utterly compromised justice disapproved of by a majority of the nation sits on the highest court in the land. The ultimate station of justice, that which demands temperament and impartiality, is now occupied by a partisan hack.

The necessity of an impartial court would, in a perfect world, not be necessary to illustrate or emphasize. It would be delightful, in fact, not to mention how inappropriate it is for a Supreme Court nominee to rail against the Clinton family, but it seems that we do not live in such times. Regardless of the justice’s political leanings, the process of nominating and approving Brett Kavanaugh for a spot on the Supreme Court has been a sickening and tiresome affair. I yearn for the days when this mess of an administration will be a thing of the past.