LONG TERM AFFECT OF THE KAVANAUGH / FORD TESTIMONY

… Ms. Christine Blasey Ford

During Ms. Ford’s testimony, women were calling C-SPAN to tell their own stories of sexual assault.

I had told myself that I was not going to write about the Washington circus of the Bret Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination.

I am sticking with that decision as to the battle between the GOP and Dems that will be voting for Kavanaugh.  But I am going to write about some of what I witnessed of some of the regular American observers that took the time to watch Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh tell their stories on national TV.

But there was another story written in The Post about a group of retirees in a Senior Center in a Florida town and as the retirees watched Ms. Ford crying as she told her story, the women were also dabbing their eyes and saying, “Who can blame her?”

One of the women, a retired cashier said, “She looks scared, and she looks nervous. But I think she’s telling the truth.” The woman continued: “She waited a long time to talk about it, but this is something that will never leave you, no matter what happens. You always remember it. You may not think of it every day, but it will always be with you, just like learning the ABCs. You never forget.”

Hours later, at a cigar lounge in Houston, a retired police officer, Merg Meraia, 54, while listening to Brett Kavanaugh’s fiery defense, his voice cracking, but the retired officer was convinced him that the Supreme Court nominee was being honest when he denied sexually assaulting Ford.

People listened to both individuals on cellphone speakers in subway cars and even in doctors’ waiting rooms. The New York Stock Exchange actually became quiet while the DC Capitol’s hallways emptied.  At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, so many people watched Ford’s testimony from their desks, that the Capital’s IT department warned they might overwhelm the network.

At the Stock Exchange, an anchor for the news site “Cheddar”, Mr. Brad Smith, said normally frenetic traders were all watching the TVs. Phones ringing in the background went unanswered

What they all were watching was a drama in two vastly different parts.

The two representations from the two individuals could not have been more different.

The quiet and scared but sincere offering by an obviously shy and reserved Ms. Ford was a serious contrast to the loud and defiant declaration from the nominee, as he declared that he was dealing with a conspiracy, led by the Democrats in the Senate, against him and his family.

Kavanaugh’s loud and emotional defense of his innocence and his reputation was highly unusual in the normally staid history of Supreme Court nomination hearings.  It was a risk that could have either helped save his nomination, or it may have helped derail it, but that will depend on how a few senators will eventually react when the full senate finally votes.

But what totally surprised me was the affect that these two different presentations had on the millions of Americans that watched both presentations.

The first part, with Ford’s testimony about the alleged assault, and the dark shadow it cast on her life for 35 years had a strange resonance.  People cried while watching the event on airplanes.  Many even called into C-SPAN to tell their own stories of sexual assault.  For a few hours, Ford’s tale of private pain was being told before a massive public audience, and in her story, many female viewers saw their own stories.

A New York Times columnist sent a Tweet from a flight headed from New York City to Salt Lake City.  He listed the reactions of some of the passengers around him in his Tweet this way: “16A: Crying, 14B: Crying, 17C: Weeping, and I am crying”.

Also in Houston, a retired pastor named Sam Gilbert, 82, went to the barbershop for his regular haircut. The TV hearing was on the TV on CNN. He said he was struck by the risk that Ford was taking.  “This lady, she really put herself on the line knowing that people don’t usually take a woman’s word over a man,” Gilbert said.

And back in Washington, this is a city that the local bars treat congressional hearings like bowl games.  This time, Shaw’s Tavern opened an hour earlier than usual and they offered bottomless mimosas, to what was obviously not a bowl game.

At a cafe in Kansas City, Mo., Ms. Coleen Voeks was sipping a glass of Redemption whiskey.  She held it up to the TV, as a kind of toast.  Ms. Voeks said she was raped in high school, but she never told anyone until recently. She felt guilt and remorse, as if she had done something wrong.

“I shouldn’t have gone to his house.  I knew his family wasn’t there,” Voeks said. “I should have fought harder. You go through those things for years. What could I have done?”  She continued: “I was 17, and now I’m 45, and it’s taken a long time to get to the point that I realized, when I say no, no means no.”

It slowly became an amazing Washington D.C. spectacle.  In the short term, the only people whose reaction really matters are a small group of senators whose votes could put Kavanaugh on the court, or they could kill his nomination.

The impact of the day’s first half-day continued long after Ms. Ford was done speaking.

At the National Sexual Assault Hotline, the volume of calls was already running high since Ford’s allegations became public.  But it was much higher than normal during Ford’s testimony on Thursday.

“On a typical weekday, our queue of folks waiting to talk to one of our hotline staff might be six to eight people,” said Scott Berkowitz, chief executive of the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, which runs the hotline. “Today, it’s gotten as high as 49.”

Many of those callers, Berkowitz said, had stories that mirrored Ford’s: “They wanted to talk about events that had happened years before.”

A bit later during the hearing, the TV showed Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.), who said “two-thirds of sexual-assault victims don’t report.”

Amanda Delsart, a Kansas bartender, yelled back at the TV.  “That’s because no "@#$%" believes them!” she said, the anger was obvious in her voice.

Fortunately, due to one Republican Senator, Jeff Flake (R-AZ), it appears that the White House will be asked to direct the FBI to take one week to check out Ms. Ford’s allegations before they hold a vote of the whole US Senate on Kavanaugh’s nomination for a lifetime position on the highest court in the land.

Copyright G. Ater  2018