Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (may she rest in peace) may have been tragically foiled in her plan to thwart a right wing takeover of the Supreme Court merely by surviving a Trump presidency. That is the mythology that will surely be her legacy. Then again, she may have died simply exerting her privilege to hold the office for life. She is the 36th of 106 former Supreme Court Justices in history to die rather than retire after all (bringing the proportion for this mode of vacancy to 34.0% of the total). Her passing creates a weird echo to the last Supreme Court justice to vacate the office the hard way-- her good friend and legal rival Antonin Scalia whose death in 2016 (the 35th in office) came even earlier in the last year of Obama's administration than Justice Ginsburg's has at the end of Trump's current term. Although the coincidence provides anyone who needed it (I didn't!) an illustration of the looseness of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's adherence to any kind of principal and ethics over the perquisites of wielding political power-- with months to go before November, he noisily refused to allow hearings on Obama's nominee until voters had had a chance to elect a new president, whereas without yet knowing who Trump's nominee to replace Ginsburg would be, he promised to push the confirmation through as swiftly as possible with less than 45 days to go before the election-- it's uncharitable to believe that the satisfaction of this demonstration of McConnell's cravenness is the outcome she would have wanted. To say that McConnell is being inconsistent is disingenuous when his position on this as on every other question in his purview is in perfect keeping with his single minded determination to use his legislative authority to exert hostility toward the powerless majority. Had Ginsburg retired in time for Obama to replace her with a younger justice as she was reportedly implored to do as early as 2013, she may have missed becoming a cultural icon and hero of the pussy hat brigade, but she might also have forestalled rather than hastened the end of federal protection of a woman's right to choose an abortion in all 50 states. In short, the last laugh is not yet hers.
It has not been a complete failure, however. After a week of hagiography, iconography and lionization, culminating in their fallen hero being the first woman in the country's history to lie in State, the resistance was treated to the rare spectacle of Donald Trump facing actual citizens in the wild outside of one of his staged rallies, as he visited the Supreme Court to pay his respects and was greeted by a chorus of boos from mourners. "Vote him out! Vote him out!" they chanted like sweet music. Then in true liberal fashion it occurred to someone that the mob voice could be harnessed for a constructive message: "Grant her wish! Grant her wish!" they admonished the executive in reference to what Ginsburg's granddaughter reported was a direct quote from the Justice days before her death, to wit: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
Hah! As if!
I have fantasized many times about what I would say to Donald Trump if he had to listen to me. It would probably be a sputtering mess of vitriol, but it would be a relief to have even just the chance to sneer a venomous heartfelt, "You suck!" to his face. Why do I hate him so much? It isn't just a political, philosophical difference (whatever his is anyway). It's more personal. I want to wipe the smug off his face. I'd like to do whatever I can to bring as much failure into his life as possible. Truthfully, it's not even a Donald Trump thing. I'd feel the same pleasure telling Nancy Pelosi off to her face if I were given the magical gift of spontaneous truth telling, or Ted Cruz or Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Bill Clinton*, and while we're fantasizing, Chris Cuomo, Jake Tapper, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, the remaining Koch Brother. And what the hell Derek Hough (just because). These are the beauties that we let run the show. These are the turkeys lucky enough to have their hands on the reins who are too stupid to know what to do with it. Donald Trump is particularly bad because his mediocrity as a human being is in your face. But if I let myself unleash a spew of hatred on him, one thing I do know is that as good as it would make me feel it would have 0 effect on him. There's no penetrating that skull.
That is why, given the choice between "Grant her wish" and "Vote him out" my vote would always be for the one that at least makes me feel better. Vote him out. Please.
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* Democrats outnumber Republicans on my list not because they're necessarily worse but because their treachery is something that as a person who has voted Democratic most of my adult life I take more personally. I have a longstanding prejudice that Republicans are the way are because of a mental or personality defect, whereas for neoliberal Democrats, the problem is due to a character defect.
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