The right wing myth machine has people as high as the US Senate claiming that the pushback against Kavanaugh was about holding the seat open, somehow, until after an election years later.

But Trump and company could have ended it by just appointing someone else.

In basically any conservative thread about the SCOTUS or Senate hardball tactics or whatever, you'll see rank-and-filers going "I think anything is justified after what they tried to do to Kavanaugh," like he was some innocent being smeared for political reasons.

The myth is that he was such a pristine faultless babe-in-the-woods and if the Democrats had succeeded in getting Trump to withdraw his nomination, why then it could happen to anybody.

The reality is that Kavanaugh was a horribly flawed candidate with unspeakably bad baggage and it took that level of unsuitableness to get the Democrats to come together against him.

The reality is that Trump probably could have got the corpse of Robert Bork confirmed 97-2 if he'd withdrawn Kavanaugh because the Democratic establishment would have already spent as much political capital fighting him on SCOTUS appointments as they cared to.

But the reality is that what Trump and the Senate GOP were fighting for wasn't Kavanaugh in particular. It was the absolute right to rule absolutely. To concede nothing, ever.

The myth is "If they can stop Kavanaugh over a bunch of made up garbage that no one believes, then they can stop everything."

The real thinking was, "If they can stop us from putting a corrupt, drunken rapist on the court for life, what else could they stop?"

The thing they fight against is any limits. Any bridge that is too far. Any crime that is too enormous. Any sin that is too heinous. Any betrayal that is too unthinkable.

Trump would still have had his second appointment, someone blessed by all the right-wing think tanks and with the same policy positions and partisan loyalty Kavanaugh offered. Easily.

But the cost of doing so was admitting there are limits. Agreeing to them. Accepting them.