Daddy-O's Reviews > Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court

I never truly recognized how powerful the mob instinct was until the Kavanaugh controversy. Just from family, I heard such statements as "You should care less about evidence and more about the struggle of women," and such claims as "Fifty classmates signed a paper saying they witnessed Kavanaugh raping lines of women." As politics transitions from an intellectual pursuit to an entertainment medium to a secular religion, clearly laying out the facts becomes all the more necessary. Justice on Trial manages to provide this necessity.

When an author sets out to write a factual book about human beings, it turns out they’re just that: human beings. Even biographies of the great despots will show that such historical symbols of pure evil were in fact human beings with real human emotions, struggles, and sympathetic points. When not being completely ignored by news media, Justice on Trial is accused of being propagandistic. For anyone who seriously reads through the book, this claim is ridiculous on its face. However, it's easy to understand what motivated the accusation—Justice Kavanaugh is portrayed as a human being.

Partisan hacks of the left-wing variety will be appalled by Hemingway and Severino’s account because Kavanaugh is shown to be a decent family man and committed judge faced with an onslaught of character assassinations. It does not reflect their imagined character: the demonic, gang-raping Fascist. When the facts are laid out, this avatar of evil fades away and the political conniving of his opposition is made clear—thus the "propaganda" accusation leveled at this book.

To the more fanatical activists, Kavanaugh was the personification of all bad teens; the bully who made fun of you, the jock who sexually harassed you, maybe even the guy who took advantage of you at a party. To them, that guy from Highschool was finally getting what he deserved. “Time’s up” and so forth. Only, those guys from their personal experiences weren’t Kavanaugh, nor were they all somehow personified in Kavanaugh. Thankfully a narrow majority of the Senate recognized reality over the activists' symbolism. The mob lost... this time.

Justice on Trial plays out the events of the confirmation hearings, with some interesting forays into confirmation history, in an engaging step-by-step timeline of political intrigue. The research by way of personal accounts gives us a fascinating view into the behind-the-scenes of the political show. This is particularly special given that every time a camera is trained on a politician, they might as well be reciting lines for a campaign ad. Instead of having to sit through senators bloviating on TV, reading the book provides a far more interesting (and far less insufferable) big picture. No propaganda needed; the facts speak for themselves.