It’s worth remembering that these Democrat tactics aren’t only meant to sink this nomination — should they end up forcing Kavanaugh to withdraw — but also to damage the credibility of any Supreme Court featuring Trump-nominated (or, let’s be honest, Republican-nominated) justices. Democrats have been dishonestly challenging the “legitimacy” of the court throughout these hearings. They don’t want to abide by any authority that treats the Constitution seriously, because it’s often the only thing standing in the way of their coercive policies.

The Kavanaugh hearings were already an embarrassing spectacle in which Democrats ignored the rules, processes and procedures when it suited them. Yet, if Republicans refuse to hold more open hearings now, they will be accused of ignoring sexual assault. If they do hold hearings, they will be accused of attacking a sexual assault survivor, anyway. Republicans will never be able to ask Ford anything useful, because they’re mostly white men, and white men are, I’m told, perfunctorily racist and misogynist. If Republicans bring up the fact that Ford’s allegation wasn’t reported or relayed to anyone for more than 30 years — until Kavanaugh’s name emerged as a possible Supreme Court justice — they will be accused of attacking a woman. If they point out that her therapist’s notes, the ones that Ford claims prove her charge, in some ways contradict what she is now saying, they will be portrayed as a bunch of men attacking a sexual assault survivor. When they point out that polygraph tests are unreliable and inadmissible in courts, they will be accused of berating a victim.

Republicans are simply expected to nod their heads in agreement.