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Last October, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was speaking at Amherst College, she was asked how she thought people in the future would characterize this period in American history. Ginsburg’s answer: “as an aberration.”
And yet her death means that the age of Trump will almost certainly be our new normal. With Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, the power to shape our Constitution was split between four liberals, four archconservatives, and Chief Justice John Roberts — a conservative whose respect for institutions and for procedural regularity sometimes tempered his fellow conservatives’ tendencies.
Justice Ginsburg’s death means a sixth Republican appointee and Trump’s third. On issues ranging from abortion to elections to health care, the Supreme Court will now be entirely dominated by conservatives.
In another era, Ginsburg spearheaded one of the most successful litigation campaigns in American history. Before the Court’s 1971 decision in Reed v. Reed, a case where Ginsburg co-authored the merits brief, the Supreme Court never held that the Constitution limits gender discrimination. That decision, and some of her cases that followed, sparked a feminist revolution.
By the time she donned her black robe for the first time in 1980, appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter, the Supreme Court agreed with her that all laws that discriminate on the basis of sex must be viewed with great skepticism.
I know, in my heart, that she needed this release from her Earthly body.
But, I feel so sad, that we no longer have her with us.
Thank you, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ginsburg was a great justice who unfortunately, given when she served, will be remembered more for her dissents than her opinions.
But staying on the Court so long because she believed her voice was irreplaceable was an unforced error that may haunt the country for decades to come. The last safe year to name her replacement was probably 2013, when she was already 80 and a cancer survivor.
I agree with all of that but I don't believe we're fucked for decades. If Trump wins, the Pubs will blow themselves up and if he loses, they will lose their minds.
I agree with all of that but I don't believe we're fucked for decades. If Trump wins, the Pubs will blow themselves up and if he loses, they will lose their minds.
Will they? They've already sold their souls. They don't really care about the country.
This assumes that the right doesn't use its control of the courts to rig the game and insulate themselves from majority opinion, a process that's already well under way.
Will they? They've already sold their souls. They don't really care about the country.
If by some some strange act of fate or subterfuge Trump does win, he and the Republicans will still have to govern a country that is changing faster than they can keep up with.
Despite all the chaos, many progressive ideas have been advanced.
Business is moving towards a green economy, racial concerns are being addressed, women's and LGBTQ issues have been advanced, money is being spent on social programs, Roe v Wade is still the law of the land and attempts to deny access to safe reproductive health services have been rejected.
The age of the Rinosaurs is almost over one way or the other.
I hope you're right. "There can't be more of them than us" is my mantra these days.
I definitely think they will and for the reasons you listed above. Something big will happen and the Pubs will be to blame. Not sure how the cult followers haven't got sick of this shit yet but I have hope that they will see the error of their ways.
#optimist
Will they? They've already sold their souls. They don't really care about the country.
Bigger than a pandemic and countless record breaking natural disasters?
I'm afraid so.