Who has more to lose if there is no Ford testimony?

It is still not clear whether or not Christine Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Since the Republicans on the Committee are all white men, and all hostile to Ford, they want to have a woman lawyer come in to interrogate Ford, which would be highly unusual, and Ford still calls bullshit on this.  Also, Grassley wants to let Kavanaugh speak second, so that when he tells blatant lies, as he no doubt will, she has no chance to rebut them.  This is a standard tactic in pseudo-investigative charades.  Anyway, until these details are worked out, we don't know if Ford actually will testify.  There is no real agreement.  Right now, we are facing a game of chicken.  Sort of.  Who blinks?

For all of the fancy game theory I study, it is amazing how often real politics are explained by the simple stuff, like "chicken."  You know chicken.  Two drivers, customarily piss-drunk, drive towards each other.  Whoever swerves is the chicken.  Whoever doesn't gets bragging rights.  Ideally, you don't swerve, and the other driver does.  Worst outcome is the disaster of the crash.  Obviously.  Second worst is to be the chicken.  You have to face humiliation.  By default, then, second best is if both drivers swerve.  You don't win, but if both drivers swerve, at least you're both chickens.  That's chicken.  There are two "Nash equilibria."  A Nash equilibrium is a set of strategies in which no one actor has an incentive to change strategies given what the other actors are doing.  The equilibria are the circumstances in which precisely one driver is swerving.  It's just a matter of figuring out who swerves.

In reality, though, a lot of the interesting analogs to chicken are games in which the "disaster" isn't that disastrous, or at least, not equally disastrous for everyone.  In chicken, that disaster pretty much sucks, which is why only drunken idiots do it.  Drunken idiots do a lot of things.  Which is not an excuse, "Brett."  Which is not an excuse!  Fuck you, "Brett."

Anyway, Ford wants to testify after "Brett" so that she has a chance to rebut that liar's lies, and she wants a normal Senate hearing, where the questions come from Senators.  If that creates the bad optics of a bunch of angry, old, white men harassing a rape victim, well, that's the Republican Party's fault for being the Republican Party.  Stop being that way, and you won't have to deal with the optics of a little thing I like to call, "reality."  Tell your optics-lawyer to go do something with herself, Chucky, and live with what you are.  Or better yet, change.  Oh, who am I kidding?  That ain't gonna happen.  Anyway, Ford prefers a normal hearing that reveals what the GOP is as clearly as possible.  Craven defenders of a rapist sack of shit, pulling the same crap they did to Anita Hill.  They'll still confirm "Brett," but she wants them to reveal themselves as fully as possible in the process.

Grassley?  His preferences are the opposite.  He wants to hide behind a female lawyer.  He doesn't think rape should be a crime and wants Ford to go back to the kitchen, or something.  But, he's also too much of a fucking coward to act publicly like what he is, because he knows how much backlash there will be if the bullying of Ford comes entirely from the white men leading the party of white men.  He wants to cower behind a woman.  Such a manly man, Chuck!

OK, so what about the disaster?  What about the scenario of no testimony?  The GOP confirms Kavanaugh having not heard testimony from Ford.  How bad is that?  Um... It gives them some bad news stories, which they spin as being Ford's fault for refusing to testify.  A few bad news cycles, at most before Trump's Trumpiness pushes it off the headlines with some new atrocity.  Politics junkies like me never forget it, but hey.  Thomas is still on the Court, and invocations of Anita Hill's name don't change the fact that he has a vote, has had a vote for decades, and will still have a vote for many years to come.  I don't see that as being that bad for the GOP.  They can walk away.

How bad is it for Ford?  She's already getting death threats.  How much worse can it get?  Particularly with whatever creature Grassley wants to unleash on her in his misogynistic cowardice?  (I was going to type, "attack dog," but caught myself because of certain linguistic patterns.  I have no compunctions about "creature" in this context, though.  Have no illusions about what the Senate GOP wants to do to Ford.  If you question my metaphors, ask Anita Hill.)  Yeah, she can walk away.  This is not something she needs in her life, particularly since the probability of this affecting the outcome is so low.  Right now, PredictIt puts "Brett's" chances at 2-1, but a) I think that underestimates his chances, and b) I don't know if his chances are dependent on testimony or something else.  Ford might potentially be able to make the GOP look bad for confirming a rapist, but I don't know if she can actually affect the probability of it.

That means both parties can walk away.  Neither have that much to lose if negotiations break down.  Chicken ends in a disaster when the parties each think the other will swerve.  This could very well go that way.  Right now, the GOP doesn't seem to be bending on whether the questions will be done by the misogynistic old men of the Senate GOP caucus itself, or the female lawyer behind whom they want to hide, for example.  Why not?  They're cowards who don't want to re-create the optics of the Anita Hill hearings, demonstrating what misogynistic scum they are.  Ford has nothing to gain by letting the female lawyer interrogate her.  That combination would mean no hearings.

In the end, though, remember that these hearings don't really matter.  There is no one in the Senate whose opinion will be dependent on what is said.  Anyone who wants to vote to confirm "Brett" will find a reason to do so in something he says, and find a reason to disregard Ford.  This is all theater.  It always is.

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