Separating the branches of government is a great idea. The US should try it.

The separation of powers is a political doctrine unshakably fixed in the constitutions of all Western democracies, including that of the United States, where, as we are now seeing, in the controversy over President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, it can be more honoured, when it really matters, in the breach than in the observance.

Brett Kavanaugh

Republican presidents tend to nominate conservative judges for appointment to the all-powerful Supreme Court, while Democrats look for justices with liberal track records on the big issues: Race, gender equality, abortion, capital punishment.

The current Senate confirmation contest is a product not only of the #MeToo movement, but also of the extent to which the judiciary is vulnerable to partisan politics.

The Senate has been here before, with a remarkably similar script: The 1991 confirmation hearings at which a black woman — also a professor — alleged that she’d been harassed sexually by a Supreme Court nominee, a conservative judge, and also, as it happens, black.

Republican senators, determined to protect George Bush’s nominee, turned the hearing into a squalid sex trial. They will doubtless attempt the same play this time to see Mr Trump’s choice safely home.

Separating the branches of government is a great idea; the US should try it.