At some point in the future, I will look back and celebrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s amazing and accomplished life, but for today I am only going to discuss the consequences of her dying while the Republican Party controls both the White House and the Senate. I am going to say it once because it needs to be said: she should have followed the advice of people who told her to retire while President Obama was in position to nominate her replacement. She was overconfident that Hillary Clinton would win, and now every single thing she valued lies in ruins.

The Democrats will fight Trump’s nominee and Mitch McConnell’s rush effort to confirm that nominee. They’ll raise money off of it. They’ll tell people the stakes, which are about a serious as an atomic bomb. But the Republican Party has been building to this moment from the moment since the day conservatives took it over, and there is no force in nature that can prevent them from forging ahead.

This is the equivalent of losing the battles of 1860’s and 1960’s. Imagine no Progressive Era, no New Deal, no Civil Rights Era, and no Great Society–all largely wiped away by a single untimely death. Women’s rights will soon be entirely up to the states. Obamacare, or any better alternative, are dead. Regulation of industry for financial or environmental reasons will be rolled back to the era of the robber barons. The traditional separation of church and state will more resemble what we see today in Poland than what we’re accustomed to here in America. Voting rights and election reform efforts will be obliterated. Gay rights will be curtailed, and civil rights for minorities and non-citizens will be eliminated or go unenforced.

Nothing can realistically stop this from happening unless something truly extraordinary happens, and I do not expect any miracles.

However, the Democrats will have options if they win control of the White House and Senate for themselves in November. They can add more seats to the Supreme Court. This isn’t an ideal solution, and it will touch off a political and cultural war not seen since the Missouri Compromise was ruled unconstitutional in the Dred Scott case in 1857.

But they have a rationale for doing it. The Republicans’ decision to block President’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 because it was an election year was unprecedented and a completely bad faith power move. It effectively stole a Supreme Court seat for the Republicans. For them to now turn around and ram home a nominee mere weeks before an election, or even in the lame duck session, possibly after Trump has been defeated, is such egregious hypocrisy and so consequential, that the Democrats are justified to act in kind.

If they have the power to level the playing field again and don’t do it, then they’ll give away everything they stand for in exchange for the maintenance of norms that no longer exist.

It’s a shame that it’s coming to this because Joe Biden had the potential to be a healing force in our country, but he’s not going to have that opportunity.

Unfortunately, this fight will help Trump unify the right behind him. The Democrats were already unified and energized, so they don’t get the same benefit. It’s now much less likely that the Democrats will win the Senate and much more likely that Trump will be reelected.

Calling this a catastrophe doesn’t really describe it. We’re facing the end of the country as we know it, and the left isn’t going to consent to be governed under this new regime. Civil war is now a real possibility.