The 'carpool dad', the 'frat boy' and the #MeToo culture war

When Brett Kavanaugh was named as Donald Trump’s nominee for the US supreme court this summer, an image swiftly emerged of a family man and staunch advocate for women.

He was the “carpool dad”, as one of Kavanaugh’s friends put it, shuttling his daughters and their friends between school events and extracurricular activities. Kavanaugh himself spoke glowingly of coaching his daughters’ basketball teams, while allies touted his record of hiring female law clerks.

But in recent weeks, a dramatically different portrait has come to light after two women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct they say took place decades ago. Both alleged incidents took place when Kavanaugh was a teenager, casting a spotlight on his time as a student first at the elite Georgetown Preparatory School and then at Yale University.

The version of Kavanaugh now being cultivated from his past is that of a ‘frat boy’ – a young man who relished in a culture of heavy drinking and where women were viewed as conquests.

First there was Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist in northern California, who accused Kavanaugh of attempted rape during a summer gathering in the early 1980s. A second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, came forward this week to claim Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dormitory party at Yale.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. In an interview with Fox News on Monday, he portrayed his school days as fairly routine of youthful behavior bordering on naïveté. There were times when Kavanaugh and his friends drank a few too many beers, he said, and certainly may have acted on occasion in a way that would now make them cringe.

As Kavanaugh’s narrative continues to evolve, both parties in Washington have meanwhile hardened their battle lines, vowing not to go down without a fight. To lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Kavanaugh is not simply the latest prominent man to be accused of sexual assault in the era of #MeToo; he is a figure who, if confirmed to the supreme court, could define social and cultural policies in America for decades to come.

“The stakes here are not just about where we stand as a country in terms of a woman’s place in society, but also the future of Roe v Wade, the future of women’s autonomy over their reproductive lives,” said Jennifer Lawless, the Commonwealth Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia.

“Symbolically, if Kavanaugh is confirmed, it means in two of the three branches of government, allegations of complete and utter disregard and disrespect for women didn’t matter.”

The controversy over Kavanaugh has drawn immediate parallels to Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed to the supreme court in 1991 despite being accused of sexual harassment. It has been similarly unavoidable that Kavanaugh was nominated by a president who was elected even after 17 women accused him of sexual assault.

To progressives, the moment has proved a critical test of their organizing power.

Women had already flanked the hallways of Capitol Hill, some donning costumes from A Handmaid’s Tale, even before the allegations against Kavanaugh were reported. Of primary concern was the future of Roe v Wade, the landmark supreme court decision that legalized abortion in the US, and whether Kavanaugh would give the nine-justice bench the power to overturn it.

The allegations against him have amplified the potency of the argument that Kavanaugh cannot be entrusted with considering the legality of women’s reproductive rights.

The White House and Republicans, by contrast, have stood decidedly in his corner.

On Wednesday, Trump sharply attacked Kavanaugh’s accusers and specifically took aim at Ramirez.

“The second accuser has nothing,” he said. “She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses.”

“She said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up, and she doesn’t know it was him but it might’ve been him,” Trump added, before sarcastically stating: “Oh gee, let’s not make him a supreme court judge because of that.”

Lawless said Trump’s tone was far from surprising, given his own history of talking about women in derogatory and misogynistic terms. The effort by Kavanaugh’s allies to downplay the allegations against him as behavior typical of younger men, she noted, were not dissimilar to Trump’s dismissal of the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape, in which he bragged about groping and kissing women without their consent, as “locker room talk”.

“These are the kind of statements we’d expect to hear in an era of Mad Men, not 2018,” Lawless said.

“It cheapens the national discourse around important issues like sexual assault.”

The president’s aggressive defense of Kavanaugh reinforces the significance of appointment to the supreme court, where he is poised to replace retiring justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who often acted as a swing vote on critical issues such as abortion and LGBT rights.

Trump openly campaigned on overturning Roe v Wade and has taken several steps as president to curtail access to abortion and fetal research. The latest such salvo came on Monday, when the Trump administration canceled a federal contract for human fetal tissue research and announced a review of all such research projects.

Both Kavanaugh and Ford are slated to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on Thursday. A coalition of conservative groups will hold an “I Stand with Brett” rally prior to the hearing, the speakers of which include Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List. Earlier this year, Dannenfelser referred to Trump as “the most pro-life president in our nation’s history”.

“This is one time when the personal scandal is related to the judicial philosophy,” said Brian Fitzpatrick, a professor of law at Vanderbilt University. “It’s the type of scandal that maybe has extra potency, because it is connected to the main substantive concern toward the nominee.”

“Roe v Wade was the number one concern among a lot of Democrats,” he added. “And if you can show the personal life of the nominee is hostile to equal treatment for women, then you might be able to connect the two in voters’ minds.”

Although Republicans have struck a defiant tone about Kavanaugh’s confirmation prospects, they can afford to lose only one vote the Senate.

At least one potential swing vote, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, signaled the allegations have given her further pause while considering Kavanaugh’s suitability for the supreme court.

“We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified,” Murkowski told the New York Times.

“It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.”