Demanding Better

GUEST COMMENTARY-Lyin' Frat Boy Brett Kavanaugh may be loftily ensconced in his ill-begotten perch at the Supreme Court, but fury against him and the corrupt process that put him there is evidently alive and well. 

The Bar Association has reopened its investigation of him; the wiseacre advocates of Fix the Court bought the (unwisely unprotected) name BrettKavanaugh.com and turned it into a resource site for sexual assault survivors; and a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found just 1 in 4 Americans believed the belligerent, overwrought, weepy denials of sexual assault and blackout drinking by a guy who sure was acting like an on-the-edge blackout drunk. 

Those numbers in turn break down in typically partisan ways - a still-modest 6 in 10 GOPers thought he was entirely truthful, while fewer than 1 in 10 Democrats did - and less than a third approved of the process and players. 

At Yale, ole Bart's alma mater, those numbers are apparently lower still. This week, the searing words of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford were found spray-painted around campus in a powerful reflection of ongoing anger against Kavanaugh: "I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me" at Sprague Hall, "I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world" on a dorm doorway, and most memorably, at the entrance to the Law School, "Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter" - Ford's words after Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy asked about her clearest memory from the assault. At the time, Ford added, “The uproarious laughter between the two. They’re having fun at my expense.” 

According to Yale Law student Laurel Raymond, the school's walls have been papered with fliers explaining "why we’re demanding better" - from the judiciary, the school, our leaders. The graffiti felt different: "Something about the permanence of paint speaks to how deeply betrayed and disappointed people feel.” It was eventually cleaned off, but for many it left the sense it's not over till it's over.

(CityWatch guest columnist, Abby Zimet, writes for the excellent Common Dreams where this commentary originated.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.