Pay no attention to arguments about “strict construction,” “neutral and impartial arbiter,” “calling balls and strikes” and other such niceties. These concepts apply only at confirmation hearings. Everybody knows that such invocations are merely a ritual, a rite of passage to get past the confirmation hearings. Conduct a vote count before and after the hearings, and see how many votes were changed by these fine debate points. Everybody knows that the Supreme Court justices can vote any way they want, and will, and these days, everybody also knows what way that is likely to be.

And what it is likely to be for Brett Kavanaugh and hence the court majority is to roll back liberal legislation now, and to blockade it systematically at such time as the public wises up to the GOP agenda and votes Republicans out of office.

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And just what items in the liberal (sane) agenda might go away forever? The regulation of unchecked and untraceable money in election campaigns (almost gone already); any guaranteed health-care coverage (the technical mechanism ruled impermissible, always); remedies to egregious gerrymandering, or voter suppression, or both (their hands are tied!); climate legislation (overbroad!); air and water pollution restrictions (administrative statism!); and endangered species protection (a “taking away” of landowners’ constitutional right to exterminate the last of any species they “own’). To say nothing of previously recognized rights of a woman to control her own reproduction, of course. The list of opportunities is long.

So listen to the hearings if you choose, and interpret them any way you want. But the relevant facts will be evaded. The relevant fact was when Mitch McConnell used raw power to prevent a qualified Barack Obama nominee from even HAVING a hearing, let alone a vote or appointment.

It’s not “balls and strikes” we’re talking about here. It’s out-and-out game-rigging.