RBG, RIP

It’s a supreme loss. With the unfortunate, truly untimely passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. now has one less “better angel,” a precious legal/ethical/moral force in an America in desperate need of serious societal lodestars. An America still revisited by gender and racial inequities. An America grappling with a white-makes-right autocracy.  

Out of respect for Ginsburg’s principles and her legacy, how appropriate it would be to not make her replacement nothing more than partisan political business as usual. How fitting it would be to honor her deathbed “fervent wish” that she “not be replaced until a new president is installed.” The election is mere weeks away. That’s a lot closer than Barack Obama was when he nominated Merritt Garland to replace Antonin Scalia in March of 2016. We all know how that Mitch McConnell-directed scenario ended. Typically, it takes about 70 days from nomination to confirmation. It took 89 days to vet Brent Kavanaugh.

How unshockingly dishonorable it would be for McConnell & Co. to ignore that self-serving precedent now that the president and senate are controlled by the same party. “When you have the Senate, when you have the votes, you can sort of do what you want,” underscored Trump, sounding like the SCOTUS version of his “Access Hollywood” tape.  

Too bad we can’t count on following the advice of the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election,” stated Graham in 2018. Alas, the senator who called Trump “unfit for office” has already made his Faustian deal that gets him golfing with this unfit president.

Well, then, there’s always the recommendation of Sen. Marco Rubio as seen through his 2016 political lens. “I don’t think we should be moving forward with a nominee in the last year of this president’s term. I would say that even if it was a Republican president.” Even, presumably, if that were a “con man” charlatan as president. Gracias para nada.

Unfortunately, this is the hypocritical scenario—with all the usual sycophantic suspects coming to the aid of their subservient party and narcissistic cult leader. Country first? Let the people decide via the upcoming election? How naïve. What kind of democracy is that? With the exception of those usual suspects, we all deserve so much better. But thank you for your service, RBG. History will be a lot kinder.

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