Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a dream. My dream is that one day the United States will elect a president who dares to explain to the American people that, on controversial questions, the Supreme Court is a political and not a legal institution; and that justices practice their politics by pretending to "interpret" and apply the law and the Constitution.

In a nutshell, this explains what is going on with the vicious and vile leftist Democrat character assassination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

"Political" here does not refer to Republicans versus Democrats, or the desire of Trump-haters to stick it to the president. This article uses "political" to describe the struggle over "who gets what when and how." In a self-governing republic, the "how" consists of decisions by elected representatives. The Kavanaugh fight is really a fight between those who believe in the Framers' republic and those who want to destroy that republic.

To paraphrase the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia, he frequently told political combatants: "If you want policies not mandated or prohibited by the United States Constitution, don't ask judges to impose what you want but, instead, persuade your fellow citizens." What are today's leftists to do if they can't persuade their fellow citizens to buy their nostrums? What if these leftists are like the communists once described by Justice William O. Douglas as "miserable merchants of unwanted ideas" they cannot sell?

Here is why death penalty opponents, consistently unable to convert the death penalty-supporting majority of voters, repeatedly run to the Supreme Court to get their way: unaccountable judges are the last best hope of democracy's losers. Once upon a time, a very old Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously stated:

[A]bout 75 years ago I learned that I was not God. And so, when the people ... want to do something I can't find anything in the Constitution expressly forbidding them to do, I say, whether I like it or not, "G-------, let 'em do it."

Judge Kavanaugh has been subjected to what Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell called (4'04") a "despicable" Democrat smear campaign because today's "miserable merchants of unwanted ideas" are terrified that Kavanaugh is honest and will be faithful to the Constitution they have abhorred dating back to Woodrow Wilson. That these "miserable merchants" despise the Constitution and all who faithfully apply it has been abundantly demonstrated by the refusal of the left to accept the constitutionally mandated result of the 2016 election. Leftists prefer justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, not long ago, expressed disdain for the very Constitution she took not one, but two oaths to apply faithfully (Equal Justice, p. 196). (Unlike in the days of my youth, today, "leftist" and "Democrat" are synonyms.)

Justice Scalia complained repeatedly about what has been described as the "Constitutionalization" of political issues by judges who "abridge[] the people's right to govern themselves" by removing these issues from the realm of political debate and legislative action without a shred of Constitutional justification." As Scalia powerfully explained:

The virtue of a democratic system with a First Amendment is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly. That system is destroyed if the smug assurances of each age are removed from the democratic process and written into the Constitution. So to counterbalance the Court's criticism of our ancestors, let me say a word in their praise: They left us free to change. The same cannot be said of this most illiberal Court[.]

Leftists have declared war on decency, the American people, their way of life, their right to self-government (Equal Justice, p. 195), and their Constitution. If a president who is not a corrupt criminal darling of the left is constitutionally elected, why, then, let's just attempt a coup d'état. If a judge with a sterling reputation and impeccable credentials is nominated to the Supreme Court, why, then, let's destroy him with vicious character assassination.

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No one can complain that President Trump is not one of the most courageous leaders in our history. But I do suggest that if the beloved country in which most Americans were raised is to survive in recognizable form, the president simply has not done enough. It is time to explain why the survival of the United States as a free and self-governing country is at stake. That means, to start, that it is time to explain that the United States Supreme Court has been transmogrified by the left from a legitimate legal institution into an illegitimate political institution.

It is time to give concrete examples, such as rewarding the most depraved individuals in our midst with a judicially invented not-in-the-Constitution right to commit additional violence with no punishment. That is not a mistake. Contrary to the widespread expectation that those with the worst records deserve the most punishment, dishonest justices have given a constitutional door prize to the most depraved to commit more depravity without any punishment at all.

That is but one example. There are many more. Pro-criminal leftists fear that a Justice Kavanaugh will honestly apply the Constitution and not participate in judicially ramming unpopular leftist policies down the throats of an unwilling American people. That is what this fight is really all about.

Given recent events, a re-run of the character assassinations of Judge Robert H. Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas, it is time to explain to the American people, as only President Trump can, that the 2018 election is a contest between good and evil. Majority leader McConnell was restrained in calling anti-Constitution Democrats "despicable." Anyone who thinks the mere leveling of a scurrilous charge is proof of its truth is genuinely evil. The existence of due process, freedom, the right of self-government, and public safety are at stake. Only the president can command an audience large enough to make a difference.

Again and again, dishonest judges have lied about the Constitution (Equal Justice, pp. 197, 265-275) in order to impose unwanted leftist policies on an averse electorate. If Judge Kavanaugh does not become Justice Kavanaugh, we can all say goodbye to honest Constitutional self-government and hello to fascism. Leftists have tried every dirty trick in the book – first, to prevent and second, to nullify the results of an election in which our promise-keeping president made the appointment of honest judges, committed to the Constitution, a central feature of his campaign.

Lester Jackson is author of numerous articles about capital punishment, the Supreme Court, and American politics. His recent book is Equal Justice for Victims: A Blueprint for the Rightful Restoration of Capital Punishment. Reviews are here, here, here.