The Ford-Kavanaugh hearings continue to roil the political world as the midterm elections near, with the first, visceral question being: who's angry and who gets to benefit from that anger? The Washington Post published a story about the appeal to white, male grievance that drove the Trump campaign being applied and amplified by the Kavanaugh debate to potential benefit in the midterms, while Rebecca Traister, whose new book was made for this moment, wrote in The New York Times about who in our society is allowed to express anger. For Traister, righteous fury has traditionally been hoarded by men: women should seize it.

Meanwhile, attention has shifted from the substantive issues raised during the confirmation process to potential impacts on the midterms. The New York Times
video team took a look under the hood of the optics of an all-male, all-white GOP Senate Judiciary Committee membership in control of the hearings in a midterm year where women are set to play a defining role. USA Today, on the other hand, takes a look at whether a Kavanaugh-driven backlash may end up benefiting the GOP this year, and CNBC spoke to CAWP's founding director, Ruth Mandel, about how both sides are using the hearings to mobilize their voters. CAWP scholar Kelly Dittmar spoke to PBS News Hour for the one year anniversary of the #MeToo movement, the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, and how our institutions are still ill-suited to cope with allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Dittmar also spoke with the CBC and to the WNYC podcast United States of Anxiety about how women are reckoning with the hearings amidst a wave of women running for office, being particularly careful to note that women are not of one mind on this issue and women's reactions are filtered through their personal pre-existing biases and partisan preferences.

Potpourri