– It was small, but it was a giant – VG

– When I heard it last night I thought “Oh God!”, So I started crying. It was a rough night, law student Maggie McCabe tells VG outside the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC

On Friday night, the United States Supreme Court announced that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (87) died of cancer. She has served as a judge in the courts for nearly three decades and stood out as a guiding star for liberal Americans. Especially as a feminist icon.

– She said it all. The things she represented. She was an incredible judge. She was from my hometown. She was a woman, says McCabe, who has to stop because the crying takes her back.

– This is a terrible loss for the entire country. For all of us. It was small, but it was giant, it continues when it has recovered.

Background: The 87-year-old became a youth idol.

McCabe is one of hundreds, all of whom we saw wearing face masks, who had gathered Saturday in front of the Supreme Court in the US capital, where an overwhelming majority of the population votes for the Democrats, to show their respect.

They were reunited in silence and pain. Many put flowers in front of the building. There were hundreds of bouquets of flowers lined up. Many had also placed posters next to the flowers with different messages. Someone from Ginsburg. Others on what they want to happen now.

GREAT SPECIAL VG: It is the states that decide the choice

– There was no doubt that you should come here today. I wanted to show my respect, she was a voice for all privileged men who were not white, explains McCabe.

Senator of VG: – I admired her a lot.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, 80, of Vermont, appeared in front of the Supreme Court building to show his respect for his wife.

– I remember her as a prototype of what a Supreme Court judge should be. A person who was an inspiration to the young and old in this country. And we both remember her as a good personal friend, Leahy tells VG.

– Are you worried that Trump is in a rush to replace you?

– What I want now is to honor his memory. She was a good friend and I admired her very much.

Against the will of the majority

The United States Supreme Court, where judges are appointed for life, has great power over, for example, social issues.

– The issue of abortion in the United States is an interpretation of the Constitution of the Supreme Court, which can be changed. Gun legislation is also ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, citing as examples the American expert and professor Jennifer Leigh Bailey from NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science.

Same-sex marriages or laws that can directly affect political decisions are different.

If Trump, with the help of a Republican majority in the Senate, succeeds in having a new judge appointed, it will mean that he has appointed three of the nine Supreme Court justices, and the conservative majority on the court will be six to six. three.

In that case, it happens against the will of a majority of Americans, since it received three million fewer votes than the opposition candidate in 2016 and the 53 Republicans in the Senate together received several million fewer votes than the 47. representatives of the minority.

This is something that really bothers Maggie McCabe:

– It’s absolutely incredible that it can be like this. It scares me that Trump might get another hyperconservative judge appointed.

Who will be the next Supreme Court justice could affect the lives of Americans for generations to come.

Democrats are furious

Just before she died, Ruth Bader told Ginsburg that her greatest wish is that her replacement not be named until a new president is installed. It’s happening in January, whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

Neither President Donald Trump nor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have plans to fulfill that wish. Just hours after the death was known, the latter said he plans to take Trump’s nomination to a vote. It has the power to do that.

The statement infuriated Democrats when McConnell in 2016 refused to vote for Merrick Garland, whom then-President Barack Obama had appointed to the Supreme Court. This despite Garland being appointed 11 months before the election.

McConnell argued at the time that the people during the next presidential election had to decide who should be allowed to appoint a new Supreme Court justice.

– The double standard is quite extreme. She was hoping they were decent enough to fulfill her dying wish while also following her own 2016 precedent, says 25-year-old student Shiraz, who doesn’t want to share her last name but also laid flowers in honor of “RGB ».

Fear of democracy

Also Trisha Kyner from Baltimore laid flowers. She says this is a day to show respect, but then the country’s liberal voices must continue the late judge’s fight.

– It is important so that democracy does not break. We must fight both against the appointment of a new judge before the election and to win the election, says the Baltimore woman, who is content to reveal that she is over 50 years old.

Also Maggie McCabe and Shiraz say they are ready to fight.

-We must, because we cannot accept that the values ​​of the majority are not heard, says the latter.

– Incredibly dramatic

Commentator Henrik Heldahl on AmerikanskPolitikk.no believes the case will be a turning point in the election campaign. Now there is much more at stake.

– This is an incredibly dramatic turn in the election campaign, he tells VG.

– When a candidate has been behind the polls for as long as Trump, it depends on something to change the dynamic. It happened now, he adds.

In the US media, experts also speculate about it, with several believing that death can ultimately change the outcome of both the presidential elections and several of the different senatorial elections that are held at the same time.

Exactly how and in what direction, however, there is uncertainty and different theories about it. Depending on who you ask and of course how the various sites handle this in the weeks to come.