It is sad that upon hearing the news of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it didn’t take but 3 seconds for me to start considering and dreading the political implications rather than being able to mourn her loss.
It’s a great shame because she was a truly memorable and remarkable justice who left a true legacy in her wake. Women and minorities were afforded much greater protection under the law thanks to her. I spent the weekend remembering her, watching RBG and reading up on her life’s work.
What angers me most is the ways in which Republicans seem willing to bend the rules and play political games to their own benefit. When I heard of Ruth’s passing, I made a comment that I would bet $200 billion that the Republicans would somehow see this differently than the death of Justice Anthony Scalia in 2016 when Mitch McConnell famously said that a Supreme Court justice should not be confirmed in an election year, even though he died in February, compared with RBG dying in September. Of course, it was less than 24 hours later that Republicans had signalled their intention to replace Ginsburg immediately.
This is the kind of behaviour that, despite me considering myself a centrist or a moderate, cause me to think that I can never vote Republican. To me, they’re a party who blatantly abuse their power and look to the individual rather than the collective good when making decisions.
I’m grateful for the legacy that RBG has left behind, and sad that we seem destined to have a strongly conservative court coming our way for decades to come who are likely to continue eroding the very protections that RBG fought so hard to provide.