A few thoughts on the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
What I'm not going to do in this essay is talk you down from whatever grieving you have to do.
I, myself, am at a place of peace, as I'm sure Justice Ginsburg was.
She was a titanic figure of American history, with a belief in the validity and endurance of the American experiment.
But we are all different, and your grieving is yours to navigate. This blog is here as a space for you to do that grieving.
All I'll do is offer my own words of wisdom, such as they are, and they're not much.
First, and foremost, this is a poisoned chalice.
Yes, Mitch McConnell will try to slam through a replacement. Justice Tom Cotton, anyone? We already know that, and there's not much we can do about it.
But in doing so, he will only shore up support the GOP has already. Meanwhile, he will drive the fence-sitters to Joe Biden in a way that Biden himself couldn't do so. After the farce of Merrick Garland, the hypocrisy will be there for all to see.
Secondly, if the GOP does ram through a nominee, and Biden wins in a landslide because of it, he will have all the mandate he needs to blow up the filibuster and pack the Court. His voters will demand that Justice Ginsburg's memory be honored, and not have it traduced by a minority party sowing salt in the soil on its way out.
Thirdly, McConnell doesn't actually know if he has the votes to seat a new nominee. He always acts like he does, and many times he wrangles the votes. But this is the nightmare scenario which vulnerable senators didn't want. Various reporting indicates that Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski won't vote to seat a new justice until after the inauguration. That makes it 50-50. That means Mike Pence would break the deadlock, and that's really not a way to seat a justice and not make it look like a complete hatchet job. I know: McConnell doesn't care. But the world doesn't consist solely of Mitch McConnell's dark whims. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
I kept seeing a variation of this tweet last night:
A Jewish teaching says those who die just before the Jewish new year are the ones God has held back until the last moment bc they were needed most & were the most righteous. And so it was that #RBG died as the sun was setting last night marking the beginning of RoshHashanah
— Nina Totenberg (@NinaTotenberg) September 19, 2020
Nana Ruth gave us one last gift. She knew she didn't have much time left. She hung on long enough so that her death would be as difficult for the political calculations of our enemies, the enemies of democracy. Her day is done, and she's with the sages. Now we have to carry the torch.
Yes, these are frightening times. But we are called to act. In her memory, and in the memory of all those who went before her, or who are still alive but voiceless, we have only one path.