Every family gathering I hear the same topic over and over. Politics are so frequent that I rarely hear about everyone’s personal lives. It’s become such a huge deal in our family over the last two years that often times I can unfortunately predict what some of the conversation is. A while ago it was Trump; now the situation has changed. With the rising relevance of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court position, his appointment will most likely be the talk of the table. Before I sit down for dinner and hear the next politics conversation, I’d like to give my take on Kavanaugh.

With a final vote of 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, a movement has been shoved out of the way. Giving people an opportunity to speak up about the horrors they’ve experienced, the #MeToo advocation has been a large success for women’s rights all over America, reducing once-famous figures to societal rejects – Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, John Lasseter, Matt Lauer and our President of the United States.

Unfortunately, Trump isn’t a societal reject; American voters favored him just two years ago. He’s been accused of sexual assault and has scraped past the same situation Kavanaugh was in. There’s something chilling about that. After a huge breakthrough for rights and equality, our government can avoid punsihment, which appalls me. We came so far with the #MeToo movement. And with Kavanaugh it seems we’ve gone back to square one.

It sounds like something I’d hear at dinner. Yet though I’m going to hear the stories over and over again, perhaps my extended family is right. The devastating part is that the Court can do so much good; it acts as a powerful source of reason. Brown vs. the Board of Education brought segregated schools to an end, reducing the prominence of racial inequality. Roe vs. Wade gave women the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion for themselves. The Supreme Court can go against any social norms and provide the logic of the law to all situations. But when an administration that lacks consistency and safety has appointed two of the nine Justices that are serving right now, their ideals are the same; otherwise they wouldn’t have been nominated. I don’t think those ideals will go very far forward – or go forward at all. For every step forward, we’re taking two back. It’s been one issue after another these last two years, years that have gone by slowly.

It’s hard to say for sure whether Kavanaugh actually committed sexual assault . It’s challenging to make a concrete decision when there are really just two accounts to interpret from. I think it was a brilliant idea to conduct the FBI investigation, yet they left out key sources for contact, namely Kavanaugh himself. One hearing by the very government program dedicated to uncovering secrets isn’t enough to decide an entire investigation. Whether or not Kavanaugh actually committed a crime isn’t the question now; it’s an outlook into what comes next. Look to the Supreme Court meeting again on October 29.

I apologize for my bluntness. Brett Kavanaugh has created such an inescapable drama that it’s been reaching Democrats in the Bay. The scale of this allegation has grown past the other assault allegations of the era: Weinstein, Rose, Lauer, Lasseter and many others.  Our current approach doesn’t take actions against all of the people who have allegedly committed sexual assault – evidenced by Kavanaugh. Meanwhile, I’m sitting at a dinner table, listening to the news that shuffles through my ears, rushing through like I’ve already heard it. Yet there lies the problem – the news is oddly familiar. Every assault allegation goes almost exactly the same way. Everything becomes such a big deal and flies under the line soon after; the rage dies down and everything returns to normal. Something needs to be changed. Maybe it doesn’t have to die down; maybe it’s better to stay loud. Maybe my family and everyone else have the right idea – one that can’t be silenced.

Get loud.