The party of men: Kavanaugh fight risks worsening the Trump GOP’s gender problem

The Republican Party’s fight to save President Trump’s embattled Supreme Court nominee amid allegations of sexual assault has surfaced deep anxieties over the hypermasculine mind-set that has come to define the GOP in the nation’s roiling gender debate. …

Trump risks solidifying the Republican Party as the party of men. Though the president is not on the ballot this fall, he is framing the midterm elections as a referendum on his presidency, and that has leaders and operatives in party fearing what GOP strategist Alex Castellanos termed a “pink wave” of women powering a Democratic takeover of the House, and perhaps the Senate, to deliver a rebuke to Trump. …

But the president is not an isolated figure outside the party’s mainstream. Trump is the embodiment of his political base’s instincts, grievances and worldview, roaring about what he sees as injustice against accused men and pulling his party along with him. CONT.

Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker & Robert Costa, Washington Post