The Kavanaugh hearing was the first congressional hearing in which people inhabiting the two non-overlapping American realities—one an autocracy, the other a representative democracy—were addressing two different audiences while speaking in the same room. Blasey Ford was addressing the Senate Judiciary Committee and a broader public. Kavanaugh, who deployed Trump’s favorite tone—aggrieved and aggressive—and one of his favorite tropes—a Clintonian plot—was speaking to Trump.
