The notorious R.B.G. passed away on September 18, 2020, from metastatic pancreatic cancer. The nation’s liberals mourned the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, a proud defender and advocate of civil liberties, social justices, and gender equality.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time, only six weeks before the election, when That Guy and a Republican Senate would appoint another neo-con candidate for the highest court and swing its ideological balance for a full generation, endangering freedoms already threatened by a conservative leaning judiciary. They’d already been rolling back reproductive and voting rights, discrimination laws, immigration protections, and health care regulations for millions of vulnerable Americans.
There was little doubt she wanted to hold on until after a new president was inaugurated in January. Supposedly, her last words indicated her most fervent wish was to not be replaced until a new president was installed. She knew, of course she knew, and of course That Guy was going to appoint someone within the week and the Republican Senate would hop to ratify his selection to bolster election sway.
More than a few journalists compared what was going down in the United States then to the rise of Nazi Germany. As I edit and post these retroactive entries now, four years later, I look back on the passages herein and I’m forced to admit there were similarities.