A retired law professor just unseriously hoped that Vox has hit rock bottom.

Here's what I'm looking at:



Oh, isn't it interesting? There's a new essay that purports to see “troubling similarities” between Hitler's Germany and present-day America. And it's "different" from all the old essays that already claimed to see and be troubled by similarities. It's a choice to highlight similarities when there are also differences. For example I could say that there are similarities between Hitler's gesture in that screenshot and Melania's. There are also differences, and it would be a choice of mine to accuse Vox of juxtaposing those images as a way of saying Melania is like Hitler. I could just as well say those images were juxtaposed as a way to say Melania is different from Hitler. Or maybe there's no juxtaposing at all, and it's pure happenstance that Melania got tucked in over there, to the right of Hitler and underneath "Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation will delegitimize the Supreme Court — and that’s good/It’s time America woke up to the radical right that’s run the Court for years."

That's some hyperventilating by Matt Yglesias, and I don't know where he gets the authority to "wake up" America to what's really going on at the Supreme Court. You know, Vox touted that new essay about America and the Nazis precisely because it is written by "one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust." And now here comes Matt Yglesias, who is not an eminent and well-respected Supreme Court scholar, and he's eager to wake us up to the "reality" of the "radical right" that's been "run[ning]" the Supreme Court and to explain why it's good for the Supreme Court to be "delegitimized."

When the Supreme Court gives lefties outcomes lefties like, they want conservatives to stand down and accept that the Court is doing proper, even brilliant, legal work. It's analogous to what I call "civility bullshit." You propound belief in something when it serves your interests, but you violate it without a care when your interests go the other way.

I'm interested in this word "delegitimize." I wonder, is it "delegitimize" or "delegitimatize"? The OED doesn't contain the word "delegitimatize," but "delegitimize" is only a subentry, under the entry for the prefix "de-" and without a definition, just 2 historical examples, the oldest of which is from 1969. What a year, 1969! I can't link to the OED, but let me cut and paste this telling quote:

1969 C. Davidson in A. Cockburn & R. Blackburn Student Power 349 People will not move against institutions of power until the legitimizing authority has been stripped away... And we should be forewarned; it is a tricky job and often can backfire, de-legitimizing us.

It looks like we're seeing the word coined right there! It works because we already know "legitimize." But is it "legitimize" or "legitimatize"? Both "legitimize" and "legitimatize" have been around since the 1600s.

"Legitimatize" is defined as "To make legitimate; to serve as a justification for (something); spec. to make (a child) legitimate by legal enactment or otherwise." The OED tells us it's rare, but John Cheever used it in 1961:

1961 J. Cheever Jrnls. (1991) 152 The most important thing he did for me was to legitimatize manly courage.

Harrumph! Sounds right wing. Let's check "legitimize." The OED refers us to "legitimatize" for the definition but does not warn us that it's rare. I guess people don't like too many syllables.

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"To think, just a few short weeks ago, we were getting lectured about how unfair, sexist, and racist it was to judge a woman for expressing anger during a tennis game."

Wrote Lyssa in the comments to yesterday's post "The intemperance of the law professors' 'judicial temperament' letter."

I had to go back to see what I'd written about Serena Williams back on September 9th:

I felt that Williams was trying — very hard — to intimidate the umpire. She was actively bullying him. Hey! That reminds me of Trump. People say he's lost it and is raging when he's using a style of emotional manipulation.

As I've already written (somewhere in the Kavanaugh posts and comments) that I think Kavanaugh made a decision — after his calm, bland interview on Fox News — to allow his experience of emotion to be visible during the Senate hearing. He's getting criticized and mocked for letting emotion show, but that doesn't mean he'd have been more successful if he had maintained a stoical front.

As I said, above, about Serena Williams and Donald Trump, I think the emotion is displayed as a means to an end. The emotion isn't completely fake, but it's not out of control. There's real emotion, but it is also performed, with an idea of getting something the emoter wants. We need to be careful not to get conned, so we're right to be somewhat skeptical of those who let emotion show. But everyone's trying to get something they want, and people who suppress their emotion aren't inherently trustworthy.

Someone who truly loses control belongs in a different category. But you have to watch out for the accusation that someone has truly lost control. The accusers — like everybody else — are human beings with a will to get something they want. Sometimes their game is so obvious — like the lawprofs' "judicial temperament" gambit — that no one is fooled (though many are fooled into thinking that others will be fooled, because what they want is for those others to be fooled).

IN THE COMMENTS: Noting my statement, “But you have to watch out for the accusation that someone has truly lost control," Kevin writes: "Because those accusations are civility bullshit." Yes. Thanks for reminding me that this is the "civility bullshit" problem I've written about so many times. Calls for civility — don't get angry and emotional, speak only with cool rationality — are always bullshit. In our present-day American political discourse, it's always an effort to get your opponents to unilaterally disarm. When the tables are turned, and expressing emotion is what the people on your side are doing, you'll vaunt their passion and commitment and scorn your opponents for their bloodlessness.

ADDED: Remember when liberals thought this was exactly what was needed:

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Does Trump's tweet attack Christine Blasey Ford?

I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018

On CNN, they're going on and on about how Trump has suddenly begun directly attacking Blasey.

The front-page of the NYT says he's ending his "days of restraint":

I guess they've been waiting for Trump to say anything that could be construed as an attack and hoping he'd go low. I don't think this is low at all, but the anti-Kavanaugh media seem to be working off a theory that says that any attempt to defend Kavanaugh is an attack on the alleged victim. No matter how restrained and deferential, any defense of him will be presented as an attack on her. Those who want Kavanaugh confirmed should resist that template, but they still need to be careful. The media are trying to provoke them into saying things that really will seem like an attack on someone who may be a real victim or that unsettle people like me who are invested in the larger #MeToo movement.

And this does get the "civility bullshit" tag.

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