Kvinnor protesterar mot Kavanaugh/Trumpanhängare. (TT)

”USA har inte varit så här splittrat sedan 1800-talet”

Debatten om domaren Brett Kavanaugh har visat på djupa sprickor i det amerikanska samhället. Inför gårdagens omröstning kallade senatorer – både från Republikanerna och Demokraterna – processen för ett lågvattenmärke i landets historia.

Nordamerikakännaren Dag Blanck säger till TT att sexbrottsanklagelserna mot Kavanaugh avslöjade att ett av de stora konfliktområderna är relationen mellan män och kvinnor.

– Det pågår en sorts kulturkrig där genusnarrativet står i centrum, säger Blanck.

Den konservativa debattören William Bennett säger till Washington Post att läget i USA påminner om det som föregick inbördeskriget på 1860-talet.

– Det här är den näst mest polariserade tiden i USA:s historia, och jag är orolig för högsta domstolens legitimitet.

bakgrund
 
Brett Kavanaugh
Wikipedia (en)
Brett Michael Kavanaugh (; born February 12, 1965) is an American attorney and judge who serves as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Kavanaugh graduated from Yale College cum laude, with a degree in American history. After graduating from Yale Law School, he began his career as a law clerk and then a postgraduate fellow working under Judge Ken Starr. After Starr left the D.C. Circuit to take the position as head of the Office of Independent Counsel, Kavanaugh followed him to the OIC and assisted him with various investigations concerning President Bill Clinton, including the drafting of the Starr Report, which urged Clinton's impeachment. After the 2000 U.S. presidential election (in which he worked for the George W. Bush campaign in the Florida recount), he joined the administration as White House Staff Secretary and was a central figure in its efforts to identify and confirm judicial nominees.Kavanaugh was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by President Bush in 2003. His confirmation hearings were contentious; they stalled for three years over charges of partisanship. He was ultimately confirmed to the D.C. Circuit in May 2006 after a series of negotiations between Democratic and Republican U.S. Senators. A Washington Post analysis found he had the most or second-most conservative voting record on the D.C. Court in every policy area between 2003 and 2018.President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh on July 9, 2018, to replace retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States. When it became apparent that Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of nominees but after his name was announced publicly, Christine Blasey Ford contacted a Washington Post tipline with allegations that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s. Over the next few weeks the still unsubstantiated allegations have drawn damaging public attention. Two other women accused him of sexual misconduct. He denied all allegations, commenting that Ford's alleged witnesses either contradicted her statements or said they did not recall such an event.
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