By Peter Baker, New York Times–

At the beginning of the day, she was asked if she was sure that he was the one who sexually assaulted her 36 years ago. “One hundred percent,” she said. At the end of the day, he was asked if he was certain he had not. “One hundred percent,” he said.

One after the other, Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh sat in the same chair before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, separated by less than an hour but a reality gulf so wide that their conflicting accounts of what happened when they were teenagers cannot be reconciled.

With millions of Americans alternately riveted and horrified by the televised drama, Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh left no room for compromise, no possibility of confusion, no chance that they remembered something differently. In effect, they asked senators to choose which one they believed. And in that moment, these two 100-percent realities came to embody a society divided into broader realities so disparate and so incompatible that it feels as if two countries are living in the borders of one.

It has become something of a cliché to say that the United States has become increasingly tribal in the era of President Trump, with each side in its own corner, believing what it chooses to believe and looking for reinforcement in the media and politics. But the battle over Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination has reinforced those divisions at the intersection of sex, politics, power and the law.

At the beginning of the day, she was asked if she was sure that he was the one who sexually assaulted her 36 years ago. “One hundred percent,” she said. At the end of the day, he was asked if he was certain he had not. “One hundred percent,” he said.

One after the other, Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh sat in the same chair before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, separated by less than an hour but a reality gulf so wide that their conflicting accounts of what happened when they were teenagers cannot be reconciled.

With millions of Americans alternately riveted and horrified by the televised drama, Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh left no room for compromise, no possibility of confusion, no chance that they remembered something differently. In effect, they asked senators to choose which one they believed. And in that moment, these two 100-percent realities came to embody a society divided into broader realities so disparate and so incompatible that it feels as if two countries are living in the borders of one.

It has become something of a cliché to say that the United States has become increasingly tribal in the era of President Trump, with each side in its own corner, believing what it chooses to believe and looking for reinforcement in the media and politics. But the battle over Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination has reinforced those divisions at the intersection of sex, politics, power and the law.