Over the weekend, the controversy over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination evolved in a way guaranteed to create maximum partisan bitterness and mistrust.

On Sunday, Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer published a Rorschach test of a story in The New Yorker, revealing a new accusation against Kavanaugh by a woman named Deborah Ramirez. One of Kavanaugh’s freshman year classmates at Yale, Ramirez, described by a fellow student as a “vulnerable outsider,” recalled a dorm-room drinking game that left her inebriated on the floor. As she lay there, she said, Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face. She remembered the other students “laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to ‘kiss it.’”

This seems damning, but the story leaves reason for doubt. Farrow and Mayer write that there are gaps in Ramirez’s memory, and she was initially reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role “with certainty.” No eyewitness confirms that Kavanaugh was at the party, though other students recall hearing about it.

Regardless of what happens to Kavanaugh, however, this scandal has given us an X-ray view of the rotten foundations of elite male power.

Regardless of what happens to Kavanaugh, however, this scandal has given us an X-ray view of the rotten foundations of elite male power. Despite Donald Trump’s populist posturing, there are few people more obsessed with Ivy League credentials. Kavanaugh’s nomination shows how sick the cultures that produce those credentials — and thus our ruling class — can be.