Today is media feeding frenzy day. President Trump's Supreme Court nominee will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee once again, this time to answer allegations that he tried to force himself upon a girl when he was a 17 year-old high school student.
His accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, now a university professor, is seeking to derail Mr. Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court by dredging up from some 35 years ago an event for which she has as yet presented no evidence and no corroborating witnesses.
Whether Judge Kavanaugh actually did what he's accused of or not I, unlike so many others who have commented on this sordid affair, have no idea, but I do have a few thoughts in addition to those I shared in this space last week.
We live in a culture that has largely bought into the postmodern notion that there's no such thing as objective truth. Truth is whatever wins the approbation of one's community or peer group. Objective facts don't matter, for indeed, there are no objective facts. There are only subjective feelings which are themselves self-validating.
In a post-fact world a mere accusation from a member of an "oppressed" group (women) against a member of an oppressor group (wealthy, white male Republicans) is sufficient to establish guilt because the accusation resonates with and reinforces the suspicions and resentments of the "oppressed" group.
This is why so many are claiming to believe Ms. Ford without having heard any evidence. She claims that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party, therefore that's her truth, and, since she's a victim, in a postmodern world she deserves to be believed.
Moreover, since her accusation advances the destruction of Mr. Kavanaugh's candidacy, a desideratum among many postmodern progressives, that's all the more reason to embrace it. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a perhaps charming but obsolete anachronism from a bygone era.
This is, of course, no way for a society to practice justice. When justice is no longer about objective, demonstrable facts, but is instead a power game between one group playing by the rules of evidence and rationality and another group for whom truth is whatever works to secure the ends they seek, a group willing to spurn the demand for evidence, shout down opponents and threaten them with violence if they don't get their way, then our democracy is teetering on the brink of chaos.
This is, in fact, the choice we are faced with in November's election. We can vote for the party which still believes in rules, process and judicial fairness or we can vote for the party which harbors and enables those whose behavior would bring the entire system of justice crashing down upon our heads.
It's an immensely serious choice.
