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.
Wow. Take it easy, Martin. It is not the end of the world. Nor, do I think it will end on November 3rd. Have faith. We will win.
Agree. I really don’t think this plays significantly to the GOP’s advantage in electoral terms and while it’s a set back in terms of the SC, that’s always a long-term proposition. There are important opportunities in other areas.
“The left isn’t going to consent to be governed under this new regime.”
You hit the nail on the head, and this is the key point that most observers seem to be missing. This is a constitutional crisis, but not because the right is going to win. It is a constitutional crisis because the huge changes that are about to happen to the court and the country HAVE NO DEMOCRATIC MANDATE. In fact, the republicans have lost the popular vote in 6 out of the last 7 presidential elections (and it is about to be 7 out of 8). So how the hell do we have an ultraconservative supreme court that is about to remake our entire society? A combination of undemocratic features of our constitution (electoral college, senate), greater ruthlessness on the part of republicans, and some plain old fashioned bad luck. It didn’t have to happen that way, but here we are.
The problem is that in the 21st Century the two popular-vote losers got 5 (extremist) picks (with this one), while the Dems got two picks, with one stolen (Garland).
This will almost certainly leave a never ending imprint on all of us and especially our children. I don’t think this means war but it is not out of the question as the right marches through the barriers and declares all progressive advances null and void. I suspect this will help them hold on to the senate so as to smite us again. But then Joe did a good job in Minnesota and he may be able to stem some losses. So we had the Comey surprise in 2016 and now this.
How will this help the GOP to hold the Senate?
I think it will energize them to come out and vote. Collins could be one and she will be careful to try to straddle the line or even vote against it if she sees that as useful.
Unfortunately I agree with everything you said.
However if we can avoid civil war, the way forward, would seem to be to change the constitution to have justices serve 20 years instead of a lifetime appointment, and to allow presidents to appoint at most one justice every two years.
Since that is near impossible to achieve, once Biden is elected (hopefully with a Democratic Senate) why not offer the conservative justices 50 million each to leave the court and take a nice consulting job.
No doubt, they would turn around and ask for 100 million from their conservative backers to stay. This process should expose the farce that is the current system and allow for the needed constitutional change. Otherwise I’ll donate to the retirement fund.
You lay out what needs to be done should the Democrats win in November and Biden is sworn in. But I have around 1% conviction that they will actually do anything, including adding the seats to the SC, nuking the filibuster and adding new states . Which means we are in for four years of gridlock at the very best. I sincerely hope I am proven wrong. I hope the day after Biden wins there is an enormous enormous campaign to pressure the Senate to accomplish these things, otherwise civil war is an inevitability.
We do not yet know how this breaks, how it affects the votes, which side benefits, but there are indications (D) are really energized by it – or whether it will have a big impact on election results or not.
I don’t grasp how you get a civil war out of this, how would that work?
It is also not clear that McConnell has the votes to jam this through.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost, etc. The Fates have again intervened to deeply damage the American left and advantage the “conservative” movement. Something always comes along to save them. This time it was a gratuitous police killing in Minneapolis in May, and now the death of J. Ginsburg six weeks out.
There was some scuttlebutt that enough senate Repubs in tough races would quail at cramming Trump’s rightwing nominee through with one week to go–but if they didn’t, then they’d anger their rightwing base. At least one of them, Tillis, immediately said he’d vote for Trumpolini’s nominee despite being one of the “not in an election year” senators in 2016. So that hope is likely doomed.
Trump may have to find a female conservative stooge to run the gauntlet, and not another 50 year old conservative white male, but certainly someone like Naomi Reo would fit the bill. The little matter of which stooge it will be will be decided by the Grand Wizard of the Federal Society, most likely.
Dems will now rue the day (in Dec 2000) that they opted to act as though democratically-illegitimate popular-vote losing presidents are just like popularly-elected ones. Ditto never pointing out that the Repub “majority” the Gravedigger of Democracy McConnell is so quick to laud actually represents a minority faction of around 44% of the nation’s voters. Both the president and his senate “majority” are therefore democratically illegitimate. That needed to be the mantra from Jan 2017 on.
My point (as I’ve said before) is that the Dems need a rhetoric of democratic illegitimacy now more than ever. And if they had begun the process after Trump’s absurd “election”, and certainly during the installation of the previous two illegitimate Trump Court nominees (now Justices), they’d now have something to use. But of course they couldn’t do that, and now it’s got to be heated up from stone cold–if they use it at all, even when it’s their last hope! Their long term strategizing is just terrible.
Ultimately though, I agree. The death spiral has begun. Desperate times.
I disagree with you but much of that is because I had my “moment” last night.
Trump is not going to win. Essentially the repugs have never not been enthusiastic about reelecting him. Liberals on the other hand have been up and down. Thats why all the angst about turnout. The one thing this great woman’s death brings about, is the end of the wavering. Ive already seen one of my Bernie hold out friends see the light in the last few hours. I suspect all of the non interested until the day before election day types are feeling a tug as well. I think her death gives us the Senate and the White House for sure.
Our turnout is the key.
You really should read Rachel Bitecofer. She’s pretty spot on. Hell, interview her. Shes pretty accessible.
I think it’s the opposite. Maybe 5 percent of Bernie supporters were ever both gettable and not on board. But closer to 20 percent of historic Republicans were wavering on Trump, including more than 10 percent of his own 2016 voters.
This unifies the right, but the left was already unified. It gives them energy but the left was already energized.
It also helps red states and districts stay red, which is horrible news for the Senate map.
As of 1:30 eastern time, Act Blue raised 53 million since her death.
I hope you are wrong, the number of undecided voters has been historically low. Everyone has been locked in for a while. But we shall see.
I’d say our based is pretty damned energized, and yeah, there just aren’t that many waverers out there. The Act Blue haul in the aftermath is definitely a positive. Numbers of Democrats versus Republicans in swing states turning in mail in ballots is another metric (although far from perfect, as a number of ancestral Democrats in southern swing states like North Carolina may not necessarily vote their party affiliation). Still, a tentative positive. This has been a very stable race as far as polling goes. Polls aren’t perfect, but they tend to beat anecdotal evidence. The races we thought would be close are close. The ones we thought would not be are not. Biden has held consistent leads nationally and in swing states that have been almost unmovable, and consistently outpolling HRC at this equivalent juncture in 2016. It ain’t in the bag, but as far as the election goes, I’m not really worrying (though certainly not being complacent). As far as the Court battle plays out. All any of us can do is take it a day at a time. Panic does us no good. Vigilance is a much better approach. Onward.
But those that were undecided on Trump tended to be northern secular types in the Midwest. And they prefer Biden to Trump to select the next justice according to polling. And moreover, it’s not at all clear that the majority of soft Trumpers would agree with ramming through a justice in six weeks. It is as likely to cost votes as get them. I think the end result of this is we end up with a bit more money, but no other effects. I think the race is stable is a good prior to have. I might be wrong of course, but the polls will let us know in a week.
Where are you getting that 20 percent of historic Republicans were wavering? Are you basing that on some kind of scientific model? I ask, but political scientists like Rachel Bitecofer have been saying something entirely different. Now, you don’t have to agree with her, but I do think a serious reading and response to her would make your posts on the election stronger.
If there is a civil war it will be like Lebanon.
At this point, everything is so raw that I haven’t had time to digest all of the ramifications. But I will tell you what was taking place today in my neck of the woods. I got home around noon today. When I got out of the car the first thing I heard was a volley of high caliber rifle fire in the woods across the field, less than half a mile from my house. Easily identifiable to me as AR and AK rounds. The guy that lives over there shoots fairly often, but today was different. The shooting went on for many hours, and it was all heavy stuff, even intermingled with a few explosions. I expect the explosions were a result of them shooting tannerite. But the amount of heavy gunfire going on over there was unprecedented. While sitting on the porch during the day, listening to this, there were no less than three other locations during the course of the day, within a mile of my house, where people were shooting. And it went on for at least a couple of hours at each of those locations. Again, this level of gunfire is kind of unprecedented, even in a rural area like this. As this area is saturated with Trump signs, there is little doubt that these people are Trumpers, and they seem to feel that today was a day that there was a need to bone up on their proficiency with their weapons.
We have purposely avoided putting Biden signs in our yard, simply because we know just how unhinged some people are in this area. I thought about putting them near the house as we live a ways off the road, but I feared someone might actually want to do a drive by to take out those signs. And I don’t want to take that chance with them being right against our house. My wife is fearful, as we volunteer at the local Dem office, which is now open 7 days a week, and she now doesn’t want us to both be working there at the same time. We had a direct threat there earlier this year, so that is always in the back of everyone’s mind.
Unless one lives in area like this it hard to convey to others just how these people view Democrats. In the past we have had canvassers have guns pointed at them when they knock on a door. I have not personally experienced that, but I have had some very eerie encounters myself, where I just wasn’t sure what the person looking at me through their front door was contemplating, but the looks were chilling.
I am not going to allow fear to motivate what I do in the next few weeks, but I am certainly going to have a heightened situational awareness anytime I am involved in political work. I have lived here for nearly 53 of my 61 years, and I have never felt more like an alien than I do right now. It truly feels like these people are prepping for a war. I’m not sure everyone appreciates just how bad this could be in some places.
When I moved to my current location, a friend of mine said it would be a really good idea if I made sure to stay within the limits of my city and maybe the other decent sized city across the river. Get out into the hills a ways, and you enter some serious Klan and militia country. I’d probably be hesitant to put out any signs for Biden under your circumstances. I live in an established neighborhood in a medium sized city, and since most of the neighbors know each other at least to a point, even if often superficially, I have become a known quantity over the years. I’ve bought grandkids’ Girl Scout cookies, helped neighbors look for lost pets, occasionally loaned a lawnmower (and got it back). Built up a reserve of good will. So I have good reason to believe most of them will not begrudge me my Biden sign, even if I suspect a good number of them aren’t thrilled about it. The other thing, I have a reputation for buying multiple signs for the same candidate. Everyone learned in 2016 that if my HRC signs got stolen, I’d just keep putting out new ones. Besides, I plant those signs in what was a garden next to my home office space. From where I sit, I can hear if someone is on my lawn, and I am a night owl. Something seems off? Got my shoes next to me and I can be right out the door in a flash. I really don’t worry about my neighbors. That said, I would expect to see that an uptick in right-wing terrorism in the aftermath of this election, regardless of the results. I do expect to see an uptick in voter intimidation as early voting begins. I do expect a certain uptick in general ugliness. The last couple decades have really laid bare how fragile our republic really is, and this last year in particular has been jarring, to say the least. This is going to be a very rough decade. How it all plays out, I have no idea. I do know that liberals and moderates need to get it together in terms of fighting back, and using by any means necessary the tactics needed to reform what is a potentially dying nation. It will be a long slog.
Don’t put out signs. They only make you a target.
Vote early, in person. Encourage everyone else who you know votes Democratic to vote early, in person.
Being out on election day is going to put you at risk.
I keep saying it.
Vote Early.
IN PERSON.
I agree, this seems overly pessimistic. There will be pushback, resistance, and a rallying of our core true believers. Take faith, we can turn this around.
I love Martin. I think he’s the best. But jeez, calm the hell down for a second. Let’s start with the fact that if the Democrats do win the election, you know Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito aren’t immortal. Thomas is I believe 72 and Alito is going to be 71. There is certainly a chance that if the Democrats do win the White House and keep it for two maybe three terms that they can pick off those two seats.
Secondly, the appeals courts are almost just as, if not more important than the Supreme Court and a Democrat in the White House most likely would restore the majority of those courts to democratic majorities. I believe under Obama nine of the Thirteen did have democratic majorities. I don’t know how they stand right now.
And finally no one knows how the hell this is going to break. I remember Martin saying how Biden was on the path to a clear and decisive victory until George Floyd happened and how the protests now make that far less certain.. That obviously didn’t help Trump at all.
People said when the pandemic first broke out that that would help Trump. That all he needs to do is stand aside do nothing let the professionals take over it he’ll get credit and ride it to re-election action. Then obviously didn’t happen. I stopped counting how many times something happened where people proclaim this was going to propel Trump back into the White House.
A Supreme Court Justice in her mid 80s just died. A President and his party is going to replace her because they have the power to do it. It happens. Get over it. Stop curling up in the fetal position and crying that the sky is falling.
Do you seriously think if this happened the opposite way around this would be the Republican reaction. If right before an election a Democratic majority Supreme Court was about to go from 5-4 to 6-3 because they rammed home a Supreme Court Justice do you think Republicans at that point say oh my God let’s all go kill ourselves and quit on even trying to win the next election. The Democrats just replaced a the Supreme Court Justice. It’s over. We lost. Of course that’s not how would Republicans react. They would get pissed as hell and probably go on to win the election.
If you want to know why Democrats always seem to lose to Republican this post is kind of the reason why. It’s not like this happening was a one-in-a-million chance. She was an 80 something year old cancer survivor. But apparently this is the new Democratic default position.
If a crucial Supreme Court Justice dies near an election and they can be replaced by a Republican president, well run around in circles banging your head against the wall crying uncontrollably that the world is over and there’s nothing we can do, we’ve lost the election, the world that we know is lost, a civil war is about to break out, let’s all go and kill ourselves.
Please stop it already! Seriously, just knock it the F off!
Damn, 100% this. I am reminded of “This is good news, For John McCain!” in 08. The race is stable and if 200,000 dead won’t change it why would something that mostly political junkies pay attention to actually matter for the undecideds? Any effect is marginal and works both ways , canceling out. That’s my belief anyway.
Well there is this. John Roberts, at 5 to 4 majority could act as a sort of moderator — but no more. So we need to expect the right to take advantage of that. We do know they ( evangelicals) long wanted to kill abortion rights. So Roe v Wade seems a goner now. Beyond that we know the right has long wanted to nullify or at least change the “ socialism” of the New Deal of FDR and even LBJ. So I expect some move against all those programs and that includes SS, medicare and Medicaid and even Obamacare. And don’t expect lesser programs to escape the made up wrath of the right wing. Yet, there is a limit
There is limit of rage from the left that will modify how far they go. It is this response that will stop some of the more egregious moves the right might prefer.
Trumpolini and his Federalist Society courtiers have a big choice to make: do they rush through the nice suburban 45 year old white lady extremist (or nice 45 year old Indian-American lady extremist) before the election, or do they simply name her and then risk the luscious 6-3 by making her confirmation dependent on a Trump win on Nov 3 (i.e. hold off the vote until after the election to energize the base).
I don’t want to cast this as a “look on the bright side” moment, but we have every justification to fight dirty now and everyone knows it. Court packing is definitely an option acceptable to the mainstrem now. Nothing works better as a justification than grievance. Look at the mileage right-wingers got out of Bork. We will be citing this decades in the future.
And everyone knows it. I haven’t read too deeply into this yet, but Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and I think Murkowski too(?) have been making noises that they aren’t on board with this. That’s not quite enough to stop McConnel, but it’s close.
Frankly, those three senators are wiser than your typical Republican. They know the fallout from this is likely to be much worse than the potential gain.
I do not think there are 4 Republican votes against confirmation soon.
In fact I think trumpster and Collins agreed that she would say no and he would yell at her and criticize her to help her re-election chances
Heaven help us all if we ever believe anything Collins says.
My emotions are still pretty strong but I have been thinking a little. I do not think Boo is in any way alarmist or too negative. I fully understand Mike in Ohio’s comment, living in Oklahoma. The Democratic establishment insisted on running someone with very high unfavorables in 2016 , and being very confident she could win. Here we are,facing fascism
Fascism had been on the menu in this country for far longer than 2016. The Right never gave up their basic grievance/authoritarian fetish, and the “moderates “ in the Democratic Party were too willing to follow the Pied Piper of Big Money and Grover Norquist-lite leanings. We NEVER should have allowed the framing that “government is the problem” take root (thanks, Bill Clinton for learning the wrong lesson from Reagan).
Normally, I consider myself the shrill voice in the room. Well anyway, I can’t say any of this is wrong.
You think the GOP would have engaged in a fair fight over replacing Ginsburg? It would have been exactly like the Garland game! Everything to thwart the Black POTUS, all the way, was their mantra from the beginning. Yes, the future looks very grim but don’t suggest it would be better if Ginsburg sacrificed her career so POTUS could try to get the White Supremacists in the Senate to value democratic norms. Ruth Ginsburg’s contributions to American life will shine in our hearts forever. Her career choices have nothing to do with the proud and public corruption of the GOP.
Obama got 2 picks confirmed, so no, it wouldn’t have been exactly like Garland.
Had RGB retired in 2014, he would have gotten a 3rd, and we wouldn’t be here wondering which Fascist will be taking RGB’s place.
If the Senate wasn’t entirely unnecessary, Obama would have also replaced Scalia, giving him 4. That’s what should have happened, if Democrats properly played politics against the very known Republican party. Instead, most Democrats treat Republicans like the 1990 Republican party.