All That's Left
There is nothing left to do but to fight.
My brain has been irreparably poisoned by pop culture. That’s why I’ve been unable to get Benedict Cumberbatch growling “We’re in the endgame now” out of my head for the last 24 hours.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. You know that by now. I’m saying it less as a news statement and more as a frame of reference. The board is set, and the pieces are moving. Another pop culture line, if you’ve seen The Return of the King.
We come now to the great political conflict of our time, set inside the other great political conflict of our time, which is being fueled by two or three or four of the other great political conflicts of our time. Everything is now coming to a head. The very future of our democracy was already on the line in this November’s election. That battle may now be moved from the voting booth to the Senate chambers. President Donald Trump has already all but said that a willingness to toss the election his way is a litmus test for appointment to the bench.
There was already a conservative majority on the court before Ginsburg’s death. Trump getting Amy Coney Barrett (or whomever the eventual nominee may be) appointed to the bench will not change that. A 6-3 conservative margin on the court means that whatever far-right initiatives are brought before it will be in safe hands from the occasional fits of sense that take hold of Chief Justice John Roberts or the rare fits of rage Neil Gorsuch may send Trump into every once in a while. A 6-3 margin would mean that the court will still be controlled by conservatives even after the next justice retires or passes away.
The Republicans intend to vote on a nominee before the election. This is because they want a conservative justice in Ginsburg’s seat before November so that the court will side with President Trump when he protests the results of an election carried out largely through early voting and mail-in ballots (which he will refer to as fraudulent), in the event that Joe Biden manages to pull off a win despite voter suppression, intimidation and the destruction of mail-sorting machines.
Basically everyone in America knows that Trump intends to rig the election in some capacity. It is of dire importance to Republicans that he is allowed to do so.
Of course, it is not just the election that is at stake. It’s every election after it. It’s the all-too-frequent “jokes” Trump cracks about overstaying his eight-year term limit. It’s the destruction of Roe v. Wade. It’s the death of the Affordable Care Act and protections for consumers. It’s DACA and the rights of immigrants. It’s what’s left of our right to privacy. It’s the right to protest, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is already trying to destroy by proposing a law that would allow drivers to run protestors over.
Much of this was already at stake before Ginsburg’s passing. Her death makes it much easier for the Republican to stack the deck and ensure that Trump stays in office, and that whatever challenges to his will arise will be struck down. The President has already been filling lower courts with young hyper-conservatives. In fact, another of his prospective judges had a good day in the Senate just yesterday. Here are the Democrats who aided him, many of whom have been imploring you to come out and vote because they’re simply too powerless to stop the march of fascism:
Among the names there is Chris Murphy, who is roughly as addicted to Twitter as I am. Here’s something he tweeted the other day:
Murphy is either pretending to be horrified by Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell going back on their obvious lies about not appointing a justice during an election year, or he’s actually surprised. The former is insufferable, the latter is inexcusable. But the truly revealing portion is “New rules.”
It’s supposed to be some sort of tough-guy line, that now is the time for the gloves to come off. It wasn’t years ago when McConnell used that aforementioned “rule” to block the appointment of Merrick Garland to the bench, or when Trump took office after a year and a half of promising fascism and then started following through on those promises. It wasn’t any of the countless abominations perpetrated by the administration and its enablers in Congress. It was now, when it’s almost certainly too late. McConnell probably has the votes to do whatever he wants.
Only now is it time for new rules, which apparently involve speeding along Trumpist judiciary nominees for lower courts.
The procedural elements of this fight were lost long ago, when the Democrats decided that the path of least resistance was the right one to follow. They call the flexing of political muscle “new rules,” because the exercising of power is a foreign concept. What McConnell is doing feels craven and cruel, and it is certainly cruel to the millions of vulnerable people who will be harmed by the GOP’s actions. But it is simply an example of power being used by those who posses it.
Imagine, if you could, if the roles were reversed. If there was a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat-controlled Senate, and a conservative-held seat on the court opened up. It would be an act of incredible negligence if the Democrats decided to wait until after the inauguration to start the appointment process. But that scenario feels nigh on intangible, because we’ve grown so accustomed to Democrats cowing from the bully pulpit. Even the impeachment proceedings leveled at Trump were narrow and neutered, focused on one small action rather than the breadth and width of his crimes, and only brought to the floor after more than a year of screaming for action.
Yes, McConnell is a monster. But this is what happens when monsters gain the power. That power was once in the Democrats’ hands, and they fumbled. Now all that’s left to do, procedurally speaking, is to introduce new articles of impeachment in a hope to run out the clock. Nancy Pelosi has hinted that she’s considering it. But that small sliver of procedural power doesn’t feel like enough. Democrats are talking about what they might do as retribution next year, but what will that solve unless they pack the court? How can they do that when some members of the caucus aren’t even willing to consider doing away with the filibuster?
So here we are now, with the future of everything hanging by a thread because an 87 year-old woman who had been in and out of the hospital for years was the only thing standing between us and full-blown strongman rule. Justice Ginsburg was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2009. One wonders what could have been had she retired when the Democrats still controlled the Senate under President Obama. The risk in staying was, well, the present situation.
The gambit failed. We’re now in a situation where one party begs for help from the masses, and the other runs campaign ads that “joke” about “eliminating” liberals.
Is there a way out? Is there a way to stave off what looks like a doomsday scenario?
McConnell’s days in power may be numbered. An enormous groundswell of donations has gone to Democratic candidates in close Senate races, and there’s a real chance that the Senate could be flipped by a margin of a few seats if all goes well. That’s a big “if,” and assumes a lack of extrajudicial shenanigans with the ballot counts at the state levels. But a flipped Senate - and a quick dispatching of the filibuster - would do wonders. It would allow the Democrats to halt Trump’s legislative agenda and enact court-packing should Biden win.
Yet relying on electoral politics is a huge part of how we got here. It is clear that the Democratic Party can’t be fully trusted to do what needs to be done without sweeping changes to its elected membership. So perhaps the powerful elected officials are right, in a way. We do need to save ourselves. Not because they are powerless, but because they have proven time and again that they’re not fully interested in using that power.
Yes, take to the streets. March. But there is so much more.
Why is McConnell ever allowed to show his face without being constantly harangued by those he seeks to harm? Why is that true for anyone who votes to confirm odious ghouls like Brett Kavanaugh, or who supports racist policy? Why are these people allowed to live comfortable lives? Why do we settle for calling their offices and screaming into answering machines? Why do we default to decency and kindness when all that’s done is usher in the rise of fascism?
It was treated as scandal when Ted Cruz was screamed out of a restaurant. I call it basic decency. I call it a gentle version of the bill coming due.
Making it clear that those who revel in the harm they inflict on vulnerable populations and the money they funnel towards their rich friends are most unwelcome is the least we can do. Making them uncomfortable is mercy compared to what they’ve done to so many, and what further injustices they plan to codify. The people have the right to stand up for themselves and defend their right to freedom from tyranny. They have the right to make their will known, whether it be through not letting the oppressors be welcome in polite society or other hitherto unexplored means. The fight is, after all, the fight.
But what would come of it? Conservatives have shown that their favorite response to their own fear is to bring down state-sponsored violence upon those scaring them. How do you create change when the government sides with white nationalist militias and intercepts phone communications from protestors?
I am not a defeatist. I don’t want to take this lying down.
We are out of time. I don’t think we are out of will.
All that’s left is the will to say no more and to force change. That force, however it’s applied, is our best and last chance. Our institutions have failed us, if not outright abandoned us. So yes, vote. But don’t let that be all you do. Not by a longshot. And if the election does go well and by some miracle a regressive monster isn’t appointed to the bench before the inauguration, that does not mean stop organizing or applying pressure. Because the fight will be far from over.
All that’s left now is the fight.