With the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe being leaked earlier this week, a couple months in advance of its scheduled release, abortion discussion has taken center stage. Much of the conversation isn’t just about abortion, but the steps that were taken in order for this court decision to be made in the first place.

The obvious elephant in the room is the conservative majority on the court compared to just a few years ago. It went from a liberal majority to a conservative one under Trump, who got to appoint three total judges; Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barret. (That’s before Biden just appointed Jackson during his current administration.)

Gorsuch is an important seat considering that is an outright stolen seat that Obama should have had. The lame duck argument against Obama (the argument Republicans used to justify blocking Obama until a Republican was appointed) is complete horse shit. That alone should have been Garland and if it had been, we may not see Roe get overturned as we are likely to see, now. That lays at the feet of Mitch McConnel, in my opinion.

However, Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment is almost equally to blame, in many people’s eyes. One of the major factors of that appointment was Senator Susan Collins, of my home state of Maine. Collins claims that she is pro-choice and has vowed to protect Roe many times throughout her career. It’s a part of her popularity, brand, and electoral strength, to not turn off many center-left, pro-choice leaning moderates who vote for her year in and year out, since abortion may be a deal breaker for them.

During Kavanaugh’s nomination and subsequent circus regarding his past (primarily Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony) Susan Collins spoke at length about how Kavanaugh, despite being a conservative, would protect Roe. She spoke about how “he said” he won’t overturn Roe, that it was settled law, and she actually believed him.

Collins was one of the critical votes that could have stopped (or at least delayed) his appointment, since it was an extremely close and contentious appointment. Despite all the evidence to prove the contrary, she actually told America that she believed him. At the time, this didn’t pass the sniff test, and was quite obviously a strategic move. She clearly is not a dumb person and didn’t believe Kavanaugh. What she did however, was craft a “lesser of evils” political stance.

Instead of needing to vote against her party, where she was already under constant scrutiny for being against Trump (publicly, while she voted with him an overwhelmingly majority of the time) and instead of publicly supporting a man who would so clearly rule against something she claimed to believe in, in Roe, she opted for the third choice. She would just feign ignorance and pretend to believe this silly idea that Kavanaugh wouldn’t rule against Roe.

It’s an obvious lie. It’s clear as day. Generally speaking, I do agree with the idea of Hanlon’s razor which is a rule of thumb that states “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” I often remind people of that concept, but I don’t think it’s the case here.

She knew exactly what she was doing. The news cycle fades and people move on with their lives, and she survived (what early polling looked to be) a threat to her position vs Sara Gideon in 2020 and she moved on. She rarely has to truly, meaningfully answer for her Kavanaugh vote.

Fast forward to today where much of the pro-choice community is grasping for anyone and everyone to blame. People are rightfully criticizing Collins for being so naïve to believe Kavanaugh. But they’re missing the forest for the trees. They’re actually believing that she is a dumb person and believed Kavanaugh. Many of those same people think that she actually thinks “Donald Trump learned a lesson” from her infamous quote where she said so. Again, she doesn’t actually think Trump learned a lesson, but in both cases, it’s much easier to weather the storm of people thinking you’re stupid instead of going against Trump or going against Roe. Heck, being stupid is proven to not be a deal breaker to get re-elected (which is all that matters to these people) so why worry if people think you’re dumb?

She is calculated. She is intelligent. She knows this game. She has been in power for 20 years for a reason, and crippling opponents through popular incumbency is not it, alone. It’s also in part that she knows exactly what she’s doing. We should criticize her and vote her out of office the next time we can, but because of the quality of her work, not because we inaccurately think she is dumb. She is not.

-James