Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice appointed to the bench in 1993 by Bill Clinton, succumbed to pancreatic cancer, dying at the age of 87 and throwing an already historically chaotic 2020 presidential election into a tailspin of unknown proportions.
It goes without saying that the death of Ginsburg, a faithful public servant and feminist pioneer, is an absolute tragedy, and her repeated ability to beat bouts of cancer should be admired by all. In the already chaotic year of an unprecedented global pandemic, record-setting recession, and nationwide rioting, only her passing could fundamentally transform the dynamics of this race into one with the potential to become truly ugly in a way even now we cannot fathom.
In 2016, Republicans famously refused to fill the seat of conservative Supreme Court lion Antonin Scalia after his shock death. With both Republican control of the White House and the Senate in tenterhooks, President Trump will face unprecedented pressure to rebuke the 2016 “McConnell Rule,” in which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to confirm Merrick Garland to replace Scalia’s seat. The vacancy arguably won Trump the election, not specifically by boosting the turnout of the fewer than 100,000 voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin who won him the Electoral College, but rather by giving him the opportunity to release his decisive list of potential Supreme Court nominees, which rounded up establishment adversaries such as Ted Cruz to bite the bullet and finally endorse the eventual 2016 victor.
Ginsburg’s death won’t just provide Biden his own opportunity to galvanize his base in doing the same, but also puts McConnell in the spotlight, leaving the majority leader to decide whether he abides by his own supposed rule or takes a Hail Mary pass to shift the courts in favor of originalist and textualist jurisprudence for a generation. Doing so would all but ensure that if Biden won, his entire party would coalesce around the popular left-wing push to pack the courts, a prospect Biden himself has been able to stave off but realistically would no longer be able to do without widespread support from his own party.
Consider, if McConnell convinces the party to push through an Amy Coney Barrett nomination, it won’t just be Iowa in play in the Senate. North Carolina could very easily reach the tipping point, and states such as Georgia, insurgently purpling and with two Senate seats in play, could dismantle the Republican Party’s last shot to rein in a Biden administration. And if they hold off, gambling on voter enthusiasm and trust, Biden could replace the 87-year-old Ginsburg with a nominee with the staying power to sit on the bench for another 40 years.
There are no good solutions. In the wake of a good woman’s death, we are left only with answers that could sever an already shredded social fabric.
