Make or Break for #MeToo

It might be too much to say that tomorrow is a make-or-break moment for #MeToo, but it certainly feels as if some sort of Battle of Waterloo is about to take place. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is scheduled to be confirmed on Friday, but not before his accuser Christine Blasey Ford gives testimony on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford says that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.

As was the case with Obamacare, Kavanaugh's confirmation hinges on the votes of two Republican senators, Collins and Murkowski. According to "Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers" by Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos,

With a 51-to-49 majority, Senate Republicans can afford to lose only one vote, assuming they get no Democrats. If Ms. Murkowski votes no, she could swing Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the other abortion-rights Republican in the Senate. But Republican leaders went ahead to schedule a committee vote for Friday, just a day after the hearing, a move that drew rebukes from Democrats who said the majority was not taking the allegations seriously. “I’m confident we’re going to win,” Mr. McConnell said.

What's encouraging is the number of arrests activists are willing to take to block Kavanaugh's confirmation. On Monday over 100 were arrested in acts of civil disobedience at senate office buildings.

There is no better gauge of democratic commitment than civil disobedience. Nationwide protests are being planned for tomorrow.

It makes me wonder why we as a nation aren't willing to take arrests for the genocide that the United States is enabling in Yemen because you know 50 years ago we would have, but it does speak to the potency of #MeToo.

My position on #MeToo since it leaped out of the fetid mass of the Weinstein scandal is that we must support it. Though at first blush it might reek of puritanical sexual McCarthyism, it is a legitimate social movement that expresses the real grievances of women in the workplace. In Western culture's currently decades-long neoliberal stasis, #MeToo is one of the only social movements to have generated momentum since Trump's election.

Kavanaugh needs to blocked. The damage a hard right supreme court can do cannot be dismissed. My guess is that McConnell will ram Kavanaugh through, and that Collins, if not Murkowski as well, will line up with the "good old boys."

Then we'll see what #MeToo can deliver. I would hope that Capitol Hill is shut down on Friday. Why not? It could be done with enough disobedient people.