I heard the news late on Friday afternoon that feminist icon and revered Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) had died at age 87.
I have never been one to be struck too much by celebrities' deaths, even when premature (this year included notable deaths of Kobe Bryant, Chadwick Boseman, and and the great John Lewis). I've always understood that, while they were people, with families, careers, and notable contributions (and sympathized with their loved ones left on earth), their passings didn't affect my life in any meaningful ways or cause me much personal pain or anxiety. However, yesterday's death of "Notorious" RBG felt quite different and weighty, a literal gut-punch, given the status of our country right now and all the fear and grief that has come with the damage caused by the party of DJT, and the dread of the possibility of another four years of his (and their) terrible policies, favoritism, and hijacking of the justice system (and/or elections) including conservative court-packing to hold on to power when the demographics and viewpoint trends are not going their way (remember, more than 50% of voters in this county voted for the other presidential candidate in 2016).
Foreshadowing via text in June, when my sister-in-law, Lisa mailed me RBG "Dissent Collar" earrings....
Prior to 2016, I (like many progressives, who now can't fathom our complacency especially during the Obama years) had not paid that much attention to the makeup of the Supreme Court or its implications. On the other hand, across the aisle, ruthless Mitch McConnell and the Republican party blocked a hearing for Obama's 2016 nominee Merrick Garland for almost a year, waiting until after the election (a gamble, which obviously paid off), using the promise of delivering a "pro-life justice" to get otherwise moral, caring people to vote for the monster that is our current White House occupant. Despite how "apolitical" the Supreme Court is supposed to be, it has become clear that everything is political, because power and the power to change things (ideally for the better as progressives would argue) is everything.
In a time where right-winger Neil Gorsuch, who currently occupies the stolen seat, might become the swing vote on the highly anti-democratic conservative court (one which doesn't reflect the viewpoints and demographics of this more progressive country), and in which the worst president we've ever had and his cronies in the Senate might push through his third right-wing extremist justice for a lifetime appointment (out of nine, including one probable rapist) in one terrible four-year term, with just forty-five days until the 2020 election (in truly jaw-dropping yet still unsurprising hypocrisy), I just can't stop feeling so incredibly angry and literally sick. I worry about women everywhere, about people losing their health insurance afforded under the ACA, about Roe vs. Wade being overturned and reversion to the days of back-alley abortions, about minorities (and everyone who isn't straight, white, male, and conservative), and about the future of this country for my young children. I despair the partisan de-legitimization of the last check and balance of power in our country, which will change the trajectory of our legal system for generations and reverse decades of progress which has left the vast majority of our citizens so much better off. I wish I could tell my sons that liars and cheaters never prosper, but I'm having a hard time believing it in these times with who is leading us.
Despite my privileges (a job, income, and savings, health and health insurance, childcare, a stable family), I am having a hard time wondering if things could get worse this year (and know that it certainly could, with the looming most consequential election in my lifetime ahead of us in fewer than two months). I am waking up at 3 and 4 a.m. with nightmares, panic, and dread. The daily hum of irritability, compounding an already-tough year with COVID-19, clinic tech-exhaustion, Zoom-kindergarten, local wildfires, and pandemic parenting, clouds each day. I have election pre-TSD, and am trying to stay off the news and Facebook leading up to November. I just don't know how much more grief and fear of injustice we (I) can take or how I can actually be hopeful when things seem so hopeless, despite praying for joy to come in the morning.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a remarkable woman. She was a devoted wife of fifty-four years to Marty (who died a decade ago and was an incredibly supportive spouse in a time when it wasn't the norm for men to champion and prioritize their wives' careers), a mother and grandmother, a lover of the arts, a talented lawyer, and a champion of women (and the oppressed) everywhere. Hearing about the way she was able to navigate Harvard Law School as one of only nine women in her class of over five hundred, and how she paved the way for outlawing discrimination on the basis of sex in the workplace has and will continue to inspire Americans for generations to come. Despite her truly diminutive figure and soft-spoken nature, she truly was a larger-than-life hero for women (and particularly working mothers) everywhere and, with her strategic incrementalism, was a giant of influence, winning battle after battle advancing the cause of social justice. Should she, an octogenarian cancer survivor, have stepped down from the highest court in the land during the early Obama years so that she could have been succeeded by a like-minded liberal justice? Maybe. But she felt called to continue to serve her country as was her patriotic duty (for twenty-seven years on the Supreme Court), believing she would live to see us elect and celebrate the first female president in our nation's history (which would have been a fitting and amazing culmination of her life's work, although it obviously didn't pan out), and, when that didn't happen, tried to hang on doing her good and very important work until we had another "good guy" in the White House in 2020 (she even verbalized this as one of her deathbed wishes). Because she fought to the bitter end, we must continue to revere her (and to not give up hope either despite our deep grief and moral injury).
Ruth's family and friends, as well as the country and world, have suffered an enormous loss. But Ruth (who surely deserves to rest) would have wanted us to keep on fighting, even when it seemed the outcome was not guaranteed to be favorable and the deck was stacked against us, until, in death, we physically cannot fight anymore. We must do all that we can until what is right and good and just prevails, even if we are
so, so tired. If we have a Democratic White House and Senate, I feel it's entirely reasonable as some have proposed to expand the court and add a number of Supreme Court justices in order to right the balance of wrongs, because if one side has to cheat because they don't believe they can maintain power in free and fair elections or follow the rules, the other side needs to play hardball, too and not just rely on traditional "norms," which are a thing of the past (as one expert put it, "we can't bring cotton candy as our weapon to a knife fight.")
Or add the whole Obama family. Because we are now Ruth-less, we must be RUTHLESS to protect her legacy. Today, we mourn. Tomorrow, we fight like hell.
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
- Maya Angelou, When Great Trees Fall
