MHS Student Opinions on Kavanaugh’s Senate Hearing
- Ben Dunaway
- Nov 7, 2018
- 3 min read
There are many controversies that surface to the media and public when any political campaign starts. Hillary Clinton with her emails and President Trump with all the controversial statements he’s said over his lifetime were hot points in the last election. Now, President Trump has had the right to appoint a new Justice to the Supreme Court after Justice Scalia passed away in 2016. With the spot open on the Supreme Court it would allow President Trump to appoint a conservative-leaning justice to help the outcome of major issues in the U.S. in favor of his political party and beliefs. This would seem like a pretty simple and relatively quick process, but controversy came when Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Dr. Blasey Ford first came out with an allegation back in 2002 to her husband, but it finally took off and was noticed by the media after Kavanaugh was first proposed to be the fill in for the Supreme Court. Mr. Kavanaugh was denied approval and had to go under trial and investigation. While the trial was taking place, many of the witnesses couldn’t recall all the details from the night of the assault, including Dr. Blassey Ford. Many conservatives take this detail and come to the conclusion that Kavanaugh was innocent. Liberals take this as Blassey Ford was traumatized by Kavanaugh and couldn’t recall all details because of it, but do not take into account all of the other witnesses not recalling anything of this nature happening.
I discussed the topic with two students at MHS about Kavanaugh and asked them the same questions. One conservative leaning student and one liberal-leaning student to compare their views. Every question had a variant answer and they seemed to not agree on any question. I asked them the same questions in the same order so there weren’t any biases in the responses of these students.
What are your thoughts on Justice Kavanaugh being approved to the Supreme Court?
Left-leaning response, “I think Kavanaugh should not have been approved on the Supreme Court.”
Right-leaning response, “I think it’s fine, he was found innocent.”
Do you think there was misconduct during the hearings and trial with Kavanaugh and his allegations?
Left-leaning answer, “Yes, I think that there was misconduct in the investigation and I think that they should have investigated more thoroughly and to more people.”
Right-leaning answer, “Yeah in a way, but the misconduct wasn’t on his end. I feel like the case only started as a way to keep him out, allowing a more liberal candidate to win.”
How do you feel that some details and key points were missing in the allegations from his alleged victims?
Left-leaning student said, “I feel like in those cases victims often forget details due to the trauma of the event so they may not remember those details.”
Right-leaning student said, “I feel like the alleged victim had a weak argument, and was definitely missing key details and points.”
Do you think Liberal-leaning individuals will falsely accuse Conservative-leaning politicians for an advantage for their party?
Left-leaning statement says, “No, I do not think they would do that for an advantage for their party.”
Right-leaning statement says, “I feel that this individual case was an example of a Liberal-leaning individual falsely accusing a Conservative-leaning individual for an advantage. Now how frequently this happens, I’m not sure.”
As you can see with these two individuals they’re pretty split on the topic, just showing how great of a divide America is feeling with this case. It seems that the Republican and Democratic parties keep moving away from each other more and more after each controversy that comes to the world stage. With Trump’s presidency almost at it’s halfway point, we can’t to see if America will be split on his approval rating too, showing another great divide.
Sources:Britzky, H. (2018, October 2). How we got here: The Kavanaugh timeline. Retrieved from https://www.axios.com/brett-kavanaugh-timeline-allegations-vote-412d33d6-e5dd-43eb-9322-fd2a3867be9b.htmlKessler, G. (2018, September 27). Brett Kavanaugh and allegations of sexual misconduct: The complete list. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/27/brett-kavanaugh-allegations-sexual-misconduct-complete-list/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0999da5f33ff
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