We have two very distinct choices in the Brett Kavanaugh spectacle. This column has advocated he should withdraw due to his stated opinions on executive immunity, and now the #MeToo movement in the form of the accusation of attempted rape by Professor Christine Blasey Ford is pitted against him, while the president unbelievably says that a 15-year-old should have, 36 years ago, filed criminal charges. The choices we face are: (1) to continue to consume this sight of Left against Right as a crude form of entertainment, or (2) to resolve to do the hard work of democracy and educate ourselves on the separation of powers and the policies and positions of candidates for office and work to elect those candidates who will base their votes, including for Supreme Court justices, on science, humanity, and fact rather than alternative tribal facts. If we ignore the latter, we perpetuate the current cycle of Hatfields versus McCoys that we find ourselves being governed by.
To say that our politics have been tribalized to the point that people are loyal to their political group above all else is to state the obvious. When Mitch McConnell incredulously said that he couldn't schedule a hearing on President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because it was an election year, "everyone" who was paying attention knew that was a tribal leader talking. He was ensuring that if Donald Trump were elected, Team Republican could put another conservative on the Court. When Paul Ryan refused to rein in Devin Nunez's obvious politicization of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to promote the president's defense against the Mueller investigation, we all knew that too was a blatant act of tribalism.
Political tribalism, imposing through power irrespective of fairness, is not solely a Republican phenomenon, the Democrats also do it. (Remember the all-Democratic-controlled government passed the Affordable Care Act without any Republican votes.) What we don't seem to know is how to stop this kind of politics based on ideologies, rather than actual debates based on facts, science, and societal need.