The Politics at RBG's Funeral

One of Michael Harrington's most profound, and least known, books was about culture and religion, entitled, "The Politics at God's Funeral" (1983). The book is a great meditation on the cultural and religious implications of the Enlightenment period in European history, and its echoes in 19th and early 20th Century American history. Harrington posits that, in the face of scientific discoveries and Enlightenment era philosophy, religious certainty, built upon superstition and atavistic fears, will continue to undermine any progress humanity may make in developing ourselves and protecting our planet.

Oh well. That is not the topic of this blog post. The topic of this blog post is the politics at Ruth Bader Ginsburg's funeral.

First, let's not over-venerate Ruth Bader Ginsburg, affectionately known as the Notorious RBG (after the Notorious B.I.G.). Yes, Ginsburg was a great and brilliant lawyer who fought against sexism in nearly every step of her life and career, and led many successful legal fights to promote women's rights. We cannot overestimate that. Yes, she was a justice at the Supreme Court who protected minority rights on a consistent basis. We cannot overestimate that, either. However, right now, I am so angry with her for seeing sexism in 2014 when Obama made overtures to her to retire so he could place another person on the Supreme Court who would carry a reasonably "liberal" judicial torch. This was already a time when the Republicans were getting ready that November to control the senate, and there were astute political pundits worried another Bush (Jeb, remember?), or someone worse, was going to succeed Obama as president after 2016. And historically, Obama himself knew it was tough for a political party to hold the presidency after that party's president completed two terms--with the exception of Republican George Herbert Walker Bush's victory over the hapless Michael Dukakis in 1988, after two terms of Republican Ronald Wilson Reagan (Mr. 666).

Here is a decent defense of Ginsburg's decision not to retire from the normally reliable Dahlia Lathwick at Slate.com. Lathwick says Ginsburg felt it was sexist to ask her to retire instead of Stephen Breyer. However, last I checked, Breyer was, and remains, five years younger than Ginsburg. Also, unlike Ginsburg, who had already been treating for cancer in 2009 (!), Breyer was, and is, in relatively good health. Yes, I get it that, once anyone hits one's late 70s or 80s, dying suddenly or in one's sleep gets increasingly likely. However, Ginsburg's health was already in question, no matter what she said, and she was, again, five years older than Breyer. Worse, Ginsburg did not leak anything about sexism in Obama's request in 2014. Here is what Ginsburg said in 2014: "So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?"  See this article from Reuters for proof of that exact statement from Ginsburg.

Irami Osei-Frimpong, my favorite living philosopher these days, has spoken in his videos, and in this Medium article, about how Obama, Harris, and even John Lewis built their political careers on a vain self-actualization rooted in the belief that their personal success was equivalent to the type of fundamental policy changes necessary to help oppressed minorities in the United States. Therefore, in this light, RBG's decision in 2014 was one of supreme (yes, pun intended) arrogance. Ginsburg arrogantly confused herself with a movement, and a political strategy. It is not as if Obama would have refused to replace Ginsburg with another woman. And yes, that woman may have been seemingly more conservative than Ginsburg to get her through a ridiculously tight senate. However, Sonia Sotomoyor was already on the Supreme Court, and I would like to think a relatively young Obama pick may have found Sotomoyor someone to look up to and admire, and be influenced by.*  

So, let's play politics at RBG's funeral, and I really don't want to hear, "Oh, Ginsburg was a saint, and we have to mourn first!" Sorry, this is a time of sharp and existential politics, and, we, the living, have a duty to finally get something correct here that goes beyond Ginsburg's funereal self-actualization.

First, I like journalist David Sirota's idea of announcing an early primary challenge to Wall Street/Extremist Zionist Charles Schumer (D-NY) for 2022. I like, too, how Sirota provides us a link to the Republican Senator Lindsay Graham (South Carolina) video, where Graham says he would do the same as he did in stopping Obama in 2016 from holding hearings on a Supreme Court nomination if there was a Republican president and Republican Senate. Yeah, like that will stop Graham from going the other way now--though Graham, another (likely) closeted homosexual, is in a tight re-election race, and maybe, Graham can't afford to lose whatever remaining principled independent voters who may exist for him. 

This presidential election, and most definitely the senate elections, just became more existential, even if the Republican Senate, in the "lame-duck" session of mid-November to the end of December, rams through a Trump Supreme Court nominee. I remain convinced Trump's administration knew Ginsburg was dying, as, just last week, they floated 20 people to consider for the Supreme Court. Anyway, to me, whether a Trump nominee is rammed through the senate during the lame-duck session will come down to whether Republican Senators Murkowski, Collins, Gardner, Romney, or Grassley or Alexander, will go along.  I will be happily surprised if enough do not go along, and even more happy if Graham joined them. However, I remain convinced these so-called "moderates" are nothing of the sort (well, maybe Romney is these days), and are, instead, venal, preening, shallow, and corrupt.

As for the substance of constitutional jurisprudence, I admit I have always shaken my head at how a woman's right to an abortion remains such a hot political issue over the last 45-50 years. I have always believed Roe v. Wade was properly decided, and well within the New England Holmesian and Virginian Marshallian constitutional traditions (I have also said any person who is anti-abortion should reconsider his, her, or their priorities). Roe v. Wade balanced when, and under what circumstances, fetuses may have a right to be born into our world, while properly keeping the main eyes of justice on the inherent rights of the living woman carrying the fetus. 

However, this fight over who replaces Ginsburg is really about so much more than abortion, for I believe, if Roe is fully reversed and returned to the states,** the Republicans would rue that day because many states would have referendums and legislative battles, where voters, even in right-wing dominated states, would vote to protect basic abortion rights. What this post-Ginsburg fight is primarily about is the neo-Confederates, now ironically called Republicans, undermining the 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment, the way Chief Justice Roberts started to do with his terrible voting rights act decision in 2013. This fight is about whether the right-wing and libertarians in the modern Republican Party will enshrine Neil Gorsuch's (and Brett Kavanaugh's) constitutionally ahistorical attack on the federal sovereignty, and what Gorsuch, and his libertarian-oriented buddies, call the "administrative state." This judicial-political fight is about saying, "Even if you Dems, and whoever, pass Medicare for All, it is unconstitutional." 

That is the primary significance of this post-Ginsburg fight. For me, I wish even the so-called Supreme Court liberals would know about my analysis of early constitutional and political history, as in my dream to have cross-examined Brett Kavanaugh. I would also make all Supreme Court justices, and nominees, read political science professor Kate Elizabeth Brown's dense, but penetrating book, detailing with Hamilton's administration of the Treasury department, circa 1792-1796. They would see how Hamilton established the administration state right from the start of the Constitutional Republic. 

I have feared for the judiciary for much of the Trump Era because of the way Senate Republicans have rammed through judicial appointees who have so little legal experience and are political bomb throwers. A win for Jefferson Davis, er, Mitch McConnell on this would add significantly to the undermining of the American judiciary as an institution.

Finally, for those keeping score of how badly the Electoral College screwed us up, Bush II got two Supreme Court justice picks and Trump has two picks, and now probably a third pick.  That's five justices after elections where Bush II and Trump won the Electoral College vote, but lost the popular vote.  I know, I know. We can't know how the elections of 2000 and 2016 would have gone had there been a popular vote choice for president, as political strategies would have changed in approaches to people living in various states.  However, let me say it straight up: The majority of voters would still highly likely have gone for Al Gore in 2000, and Hilary Clinton in 2016. To argue against that conclusion is to avoid decades-long polling data, and where the majority of people in our nation have been moving over the past thirty years.

The battle has begun, regardless of mourning and overpraising RBG.  God, I hope we don't screw this up again.  Right now, I am not optimistic.

* If I had to choose my favorite justices of the past half century, it would be David Souter and Sonia Sotomoyor.  Sotomoyor has been elegant and brilliant in stating, with full judicial candor, where the racial fault lines are in our nation's history, and has been a voice for those who are not in what George Carlin has called "the big club."  Souter was the modern version of Holmes and Brandeis, without Holmes' eugenics, and, in fact, Souter had a Rawlsian sense of fairness and justice. I remain convinced Souter resigned way too early, and may have done so to avoid being outed as a homosexual. Souter remains an intensely private person, and resigned in the first year of Obama's administration, just as the Republican religious and racist war against Obama was underway.  

**Yes, there remains a chance at least Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch, plus one could decide a fetus is a "person" under the 14th Amendment, and, therefore, ban all pro-abortion laws as unconstitutional. However, I just don't see that as a probability, even if Trump and the senate Republicans ram through another right wing ideologue.

UPDATE: A FB friend posted this article from Mother Jones magazine in 2018, which says what I am saying about RBG's arrogance.  Had I seen this before this morning, it would have save me a lot of blogging time. :)