My letter to Senator Burr on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

[edelsont]

I wrote a letter today to Richard Burr, one of the U.S. Senators for the state in which I live. (Or, to be more exact, I left a message on his Web site.)

My subject line was "Please vote no on Kavanaugh." And here is the body text:

Full disclosure: I am a Democrat, and I have multiple reasons for not supporting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice. But today I learned of a new reason, which can be stated in the title of a New York Times story: "Trump Taunts Christine Blasey Ford at Rally".

You might say, "Huh? Surely even a Democrat can see that a comment by the president changes nothing .. that is, nothing relevant to whether Kavanaugh is qualified for the job." True enough, it doesn't.

But someone has to let Trump know that he can't get away with making such disgusting remarks. Since he clearly has no shame, the only way to get that message to him is to show him that his words have consequences.

And it is in your self-interest to rebuke him in that way. Not despite the fact that you are a Republican, but because you are. Republican politicians who let the president say such things, without consequences, are tying themselves to him in a way that will not be good for you. You are tying yourselves, not just to his political views (to the limited extent that he has any coherent political views), but to his character.

If you don't think that that will be detrimental to your own political prospects, sooner or later, then all I can say is: Good luck with that.