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With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, liberal America loses its icon. The 87-year-old judge was suspicious of what would happen with his death: Trump now has a chance to shape his country for decades.
On paper, he was a constitutional judge for 27 years, only the second in American history. That just gives his life a historical note.
But in truth, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was much, much more. She was an icon for liberal America, a hero for feminists, who in decades fought for equality more than anyone. And in the end, she was the last hope for all who could not believe the direction in which the country was developing under Donald Trump. It was something like the liberal conscience of the nation.
And, as if all that wasn’t enough, Bader Ginsburg was also celebrated as a pop star, with books, documentaries, wall paintings and even an opera about her. “Notorious RBG” is what their fans called them, the infamous RBG, referring to the rapper Notorious BIG
She wanted to hold out until after the election.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg enjoyed this fame, also because she knew how fragile everything was. For years she had repeatedly battled cancer and chemotherapy, most recently with broken ribs and heart problems. She really wanted to resist until the presidential elections in the United States, she did not leave her partner in doubt. But in the end the force was no longer enough.
America’s heroine on the left died on Friday night (local time) at age 87 in Washington from complications from pancreatic cancer, which had affected her multiple times. In the evening hundreds of people gathered in front of the Supreme Court of the capital, laid flowers, sang “Imagine” and “Amazing Grace” together.
Commemoration in the Supreme Court: RBG was also a pop star. (Source: Alex Brandon / AP / dpa)
One last message
His death plunges political America into a bitter struggle for power. She knew it too well and just days before her death she dictated one last public message to her granddaughter. “My fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is elected.” The message is directed at politicians Washington and Donald Trump.
For Bader Ginsburg, born in Brooklyn in 1933, the fight for equality was always personal. She began her law degree at Harvard as one of nine women in a class of 552 students. She graduated from Columbia University at the top of her class, but did not get a job at New York law firms as a woman. She later became Columbia’s first full-time law professor, and as a civil rights attorney, she fought victory after victory for equality between men and women. For the liberal left magazine “New Yorker” goes down in history as the “great equalizer.”
It got in the way of Trump’s plan
In 1993, Bill Clinton appointed the then appellate judge to the powerful Supreme Court, where he had been the leader of the minority liberal justices for about ten years. The more conservative she was in the nine-person court, the clearer Bader Ginsburg’s minority votes became and the more she cemented the reputation of the soft-spoken petite woman as a determined defender of women’s and minority rights.
None of this got in the way of personal relationships. Left-wing liberals got along better with fellow arch-conservative Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.
Under Bader Ginsburg, the four judges on the left sometimes got the presiding judge, John Roberts, by their side. So they stopped several of Donald Trump’s projects. Now the situation in the Supreme Court could change.
Trump may postpone the balance of power for decades
Donald Trump, who has already been able to appoint two conservative constitutional justices, now has the historically unique opportunity to appoint a third Supreme Court justice, thus postponing the balance of power in the constitutional court for decades. It could install a permanent conservative majority. Critics on the left fear that abortion rights will then be as threatened as Obamacare state health insurance.
This prospect is electrifying for Trump and his election campaign. Because personal data in the Supreme Court is extremely important to many of the religious and conservative voters. Last week, Trump presented a list of twenty names for election campaign purposes that he would consider for a Supreme Court seat in a second term.
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Now the theoretical list for the period starting in 2021 is suddenly concrete and up-to-date. Regardless of the upcoming election, Republicans could get a replacement for Ginsburg in office this year. When the President proposes a candidate, the Senate must approve it by a simple majority.
A republican comes to the fore
Trump’s Republicans have 53 out of 100 votes. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has already shown how to instrumentalize a character in an election year, will play the decisive role.
In February 2016, Barack Obama named Ginsburg’s late friend Scalia as his successor. At the time, there were still nine months left until the presidential election, but McConnell declined even to talk about staffing in an election year. The seat remained vacant until after the election, Donald Trump brought a conservative candidate to court.
Ginsburg’s death is now much shorter, just six weeks before the Nov. 3 election, when not only a president will be elected, but also a third of the Senate. But now, with a party member in the White House, McConnell is acting very differently. He announced a good hour after the news of Ginsburg’s death: If Trump ran a candidate for the highest court, he would let his chamber vote for him.
A political battle will break out over the process that could shape the electoral campaign. This is a great long-term power over the fortunes of the nation, perhaps more than the election of the president. The deceased’s last wish to wait with an estate plan shouldn’t count for much.
