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Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death Will Reshape America
All our worst fears are coming true
We have entered the danger zone. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday evening, and the news was still fresh when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that any nominee to replace her would in fact go to a vote in the Senate before the November election. Republicans have a majority in the Senate, even though they represent a minority of Americans, and could very well speedily seat a new justice. There is little question that President Donald Trump will nominate a right-wing reactionary judge, someone who will spit on Ginsburg’s legacy.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate the direness of another Trump Supreme Court appointee. Ginsburg’s life work will be dismantled bit by bit. Even if Democrats are voted into office with a mandate to pass progressive legislation and then do just that, a far-right court will never allow much of it to stand. Voters won’t have a voice; a wall of conservative ideology will block any efforts to improve the status quo, defend the vulnerable, or even enact the will of the majority. We will be a country of permanent minority rule.
And it gets worse. The stakes could not be higher. A vacant Supreme Court seat will be a motivating issue for conservatives, too. It is unlikely that Trump won’t push his nominee through before the election, but it’s not impossible, given the short amount of time left and the potential for Republican senators facing tough races to follow through on their promises not to confirm new justices this late in the game. While blocking a Trump nominee would be a major win, it would also give the ranks of never-Trump Republicans and GOP-voting moderates turned off by the president’s behavior a new excuse to vote for him. An open Supreme Court seat is valuable territory, a prize so significant that even people who claim to find it morally compromising to support the president may find themselves, well, compromised.
