Higher Ground

Sonia Sotomyar’s nomination to the Supreme Court surprised me. I knew that she was on the short list, but her confirmation hearing will likely descend quickly into name-calling and accusations. Not unusual for a confirmation hearing, I realize, but of those on the “short list”, she is probably the one most likely to feed far-right paranoia.

That every ruling she’s ever issued and every opinion she’s issued and every document she ever authored and everything that she’s ever said in public will be picked through like a coroner’s inquest is a given. That’s par for the course in any confirmation hearings these days, regardless of the branch of government involved. She will have to maneuver carefully to keep the odd off-hand remark from a decade or two ago from coming back to bite her in the butt.

And there are always odd, off-hand remarks that, taken out of context, don’t make very good sound bites.

Some of them don’t even make good sound bites when taken in context. They are the product of a much younger person who might say something different today.

The confirmation process often exploits that old record. It doesn’t pay much heed to the idea of personal growth, that someone’s opinions might change over time and that a decision made 20 years ago might be made differently today. And Ms. Sotomyar’s confirmation will be no different.

The nation’s political environment has become so toxic that I sometimes avoid keeping up on the ebb and flow of it. Far too often, it has become a deadly red tide that sucks all the oxygen out of the water and kills anything living in its path.

I’m hoping for a return to civility, although nothing gives evidence that such a change will occur in my lifetime. For the foreseeable future, bitterness and acrimony will control politics. Puppets will accuse other puppets of horrible misdeeds. The accused puppets will cry foul, even as they accuse their persecutors of even more heinous acts.

It is a vicious cycle that has gone on for far, far too long. It accomplishes nothing, other than driving people apart. It indicates that our elected officials are, by and large, more concerned about consolidating and maintaining power than representing the people that both elected and pay them.

We are living in a transformational time, much like the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution. Basic expectations and facts of life are changing more quickly that many of us can absorb. The world has changed more dramatically during my lifetime than I ever would have believed.

It’s scary. I admit that.

The options are to retreat into the past and stick to the tried and true fear-mongering that’s gone on since the first influx of immigrants to the US in the 19th century or to move beyond fear. Granted, I’m not sure I’ll ever know how Twitter or Facebook or any of those things work or even why they’re relevant, but I’m not afraid of them. I don’t understand them, but I ain’t afraid of a web site.

We’re living in a brave new world that demands brave new leadership, from the President to the Supremes to the Legislature. Right now, the latter is hopelessly bogged down and tied up in ropes that should have rotted away by now but seem only to get stronger.

They will continue to be bogged down and unresponsive and self-serving for the foreseeable future. There isn’t the political will to change that sad fact.

Any person nominated for the high court will be faced with the absurd challenge of defending any and everything he or she might have said in any context as far back as a record of their words exists.

Still, I think she’ll make it through. Nobody, as yet, has anything to kill the nomination. There will be some hard-core Republicans who oppose her, but there should be little reason to deny confirmation.

I say that today, but tomorrow is another day, and in the fickle and feckless world of politics, that’s a lifetime. Things frequently turn on a dime, and a dime is pretty thin. Between the coin and reality, it will be all wait and see. Never my favorite pastime, but I guess I’ll survive.

I’m tired of the toxic waste dump that our political system has become. We all live in the same country, so why we can’t find common ground across ideologies I’ll never understand.

And given the economic state of the country today, common ground would be a very good thing.

Higher ground would be even better.