On the night of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, hundreds of people gathered around the steps of the Supreme Court to pay their respects to the former judge. People were crying, but not for Ginsburg. They never knew her. They were crying for what this meant for the future of the Supreme Court (and by extension, their imperiled “rights”), especially against the backdrop of this brave new world thrust upon them by Trump.
The outrage expressed by the Left following the death of the Supreme Court justice is deafening.
It is a mixture of incomprehension, rage, and dread: incomprehension at the hand that dealt them Ginsburg’s sudden death, rage that the Democratic establishment would let this happen, and dread that Donald Trump will appoint another conservative justice before the 2020 election.
It is a peculiar kind of degeneracy to mourn a dead person when in reality you’re mourning the death of an ideological agenda.
That night, people shouted in unison, “VOTE HIM OUT, VOTE HIM OUT” — a peculiar refrain for a candlelit vigil. But that is not peculiar for the ideological Left. This call to action revealed its true self.
They do not care about honoring Justice Ginsburg or recounting her accomplishments. They would rather use her life as a tool for their ideological agenda, paying no attention to the actual person who lived and breathed and knew how to initiate political change (hint: she would frowned on extortion and violence). So Ginsburg is denied a proper burial and remembrance. She is shrouded in broken windows and forgotten storefronts, and buried by calls for insurrection and blood.
On the other side stand the Republican Party and the “Orange Man” himself. The majority of the rage bubbling in the anarcho-communist Left is hurled in their direction. But they will not tolerate extortion or threats of violence. They will not be moved by shrieks and taunts of “unfair.” They will weather whatever characterizations are sent their way and confirm a new nominee to cement their conservative 5-4 voting bloc. And if the Left was in this position, they would do the same.
The Left brings up issues of precedence and fairness, citing the refusal of the Senate to even consider President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016. But it is not in observance of precedence that this happened, it was because the Republicans controlled the Senate and Democrats the White House. Republicans — especially since it was Obama’s last year in office — were not going to consider a Democrat pick for the Supreme Court vacancy if there was a chance a Republican could fill it with the next administration.
Now, in 2020, Republicans still control the Senate. And Republicans will most definitely confirm a nominee from a Republican White House. It is within their full constitutional rights to do so, and it’s politically expedient. There are no constitutional restrictions for a president nominating a Supreme Court judge in the last year of his term. The only requirement is for the president to nominate with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the Senate will do so as the nominee will be a Republican pick.
So, when the Senate confirms the next justice of the Supreme Court, expect the calls for violence and insurrection to get louder, until they culminate on Nov. 3. And when the anarcho-communist Left disputes the results of the 2020 election, just recite the arguments about precedence and fairness back to them.
Victoria Marshall is a senior George Washington Fellow studying politics.
