Speaking at his road trip rally Tuesday night, in addition to his disgusting, misogynistic trashing of key Senate Intelligence Committee witness Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, our president called his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “a perfect human being.”

So, consider the source for that one. If Kavanaugh is “a perfect human being” in the eyes of our president, then, given who and what our president is, what does that say about him?

It is downright terrifying to think of what we’d be faced with if Dr. Ford had not stepped forward to tell her story to that committee last week. Under the cover of a rabidly partisan move by the Republicans to swiftly confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, we may have never learned about the true, enraged, reptilian nature of this creep.

He could have been on the Supreme Court for decades without anyone knowing about what kind of mind and lack of moral compass animated this slithery monster. Now, if somehow he still gets confirmed, at least we will know the putrid stuff of which is is made and respond accordingly.

If we, as a culture, are going the route of a New Dark Age, then at least we should be able to look those who send us there in the face and to spit if possible.

Kavanaugh was maintaining his decorum pretty well in front of the Senate Committee until Dr. Ford showed up. Even though he didn’t fool any of the Democrats who’d been able to undress his shallow faux fairness public persona, his confirmation seemed like an inevitability because, like those aliens in low budget TV series, he’d been able to hide his four bulging eyes, jackhammer jaws and writhing, leathery tentacles behind a mild mannered tweedy Clark Kent look.

But, with Dr. Ford’s compelling, articulate and maturely-related story last week, and with the help of Matt Damon’s Emmy-worthy performance on “Saturday Night Live” to magnify his true emotional state last weekend, Kavanaugh went postal and now the world is still reeling from his breathtaking transformation.

“Beer, beer, I like beer!” This was the most memorable utterance he made in this critical job interview in front of the august U.S. Senate committee and millions of Americans watching or getting reports on TV. Yes, given who our president is, I can see how Trump would think Kavanaugh “a perfect human being.”

But think again how frightful the prospect of an unchallenged confirmation of this person would have been, and how close we came to that development.

Doesn’t this underscore the need for every one of us to step up to our moral responsibility in this decadent culture and speak out about the abuse and mistreatment to which so many of us have been subjected?

Dr. Ford made a huge, almost incalculable contribution to this country, and to humanity as a whole, as have those who have begun to step forward in the wake of her courageous testimony.

Now for yet another frightful thought to contemplate. Think about the culture that Dr. Ford described as the context of Kavanaugh’s assault on her in high school. Think about the wanton drunkenness of privileged underage rich, white prep school males, their limitless capacity for spewing their entitlement along with their vomit, all over the chosen party house, and grasping, forcing and demeaning girls as their pals cheered them on.

These are the elites, the ones who will wind up at Yale, like Kavanaugh, where they will persist in these practices with even more abandon and sense of privilege. The bonding is not between the sexes, but among the guys at the expense of the women, and the bonding involves not only assists in doing dastardly deeds, but in covering up the evidence and, too often with the help of adults, hushing up anyone who complains.

There has been no shortage of drunken revelries among teenagers in our culture, especially in well-heeled suburban communities, where the rule is to stay out of jail, and that’s about it.

But the Kavanaugh case reminds us that the institutionalized misogyny and cruel male supremacy that defined our culture for so long is way overdue for a fierce reckoning.

Nicholas Benton may be emailed at nfbenton@fcnp.com.