RBG didn’t pull the rope up after her
She was an unlikely folk hero.
A brilliant lawyer who, despite having graduated at the top of her law class, struggled to find a job, she wore sensible shoes and serious clothes. In a world where ballyhoo sells, she wasn’t flashy, or mouthy, or at all inclined to push her way into the spotlight.
Yet there she was, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the Supreme Court, capturing the heart and
imagination of generations of Americans with her methodical jurisprudence and her soaring dissents.
And when she died at age 87 on Friday, social media lit up with tributes as it rarely does at the death of a judge – or at the death of any one from inside the Beltway, for that matter. There was much talk of “ugly crying,” feeling lost, and seeing the world with a huge hole left.
What was there not to love? Justice Ginsburg moved our expectations of what it meant to be alive. Though she looked like a stiff wind could blow her over, the diminutive ( 5’ 1”) justice could hold a plank for 30 seconds. She greeted each physical setback with aplomb. After reaching the
pinnacle of her field, she did not, as some do, pull the rope up after her. Instead, she dropped more ropes and fiercely defended everyone’s right – men and women – to climb them. She was a fierce protector of civil rights. Sitting in the guest chair of multiple talk shows, she was capable of the perfect bon mot, and utterly bemused at her own popularity. She once shrugged that off by telling The New Republic magazine, “My grandchildren love it. At my advanced age— I’m now an octogenarian— I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture.”
The breadth of the tchotchkes bearing her likeness ( especially as the crown- wearing Notorious RBG, a nickname given to her by a law student) ranged from tea towels to
postcards to pins to mugs to earrings to face masks to Christmas tree ornaments.
She was perhaps the most impressive act of Preident Bill Clinton’s legacy. The second woman appointed to the Supreme Court – and, for a while, the only woman on the Court – Justice Ginsburg also held the line a for voting rights. Her dissent in the court’s 2013 5- 4 decision to strike down key parts of the Voting Rights Act, is an anchor in the curriculum of political science and law classes.
“Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes,” she wrote, “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
She was right. The states that needed the entirety of
the Voting Rights Act to keep them honest immediately sped up efforts to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly voters of color. Notorious RBG saw the storm coming.
She also enjoyed an unlikely friendship with arguably the most conservative of jurors, Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. When the court wasn’t in session, the two polar opposites traveled together with their spouses, and enjoyed shopping for souvenirs together. As the country’s partisan divide deepened, it remained hard to pick a fight about Justice Ginsburg. Each of her recent hospitalizations brought gasps from her fans, but she beat cancer so many times you can excuse us for thinking she was invincible. Of course, that was silly of us. If her brain was strong,
her body was fragile.
On Friday, Gov. Ned Lamont ordered state flags lowered to half- mast. In his announcement, he quoted the legal queen: “As Justice Ginsburg put it best, ‘ there will be enough women on the court when there are nine,’” Lamont said.
Just hours after her death was announced, Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, said in a statement he will move forward to name her replacement. We are just six and a half weeks away from the presidential election, and we remember Judge Merrick
Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee after Justice Ginsburg’s friend, Justice Scalia died. At the time, McConnell refused to consider a new justice in the leading up to the 2016 election. The American people, McConnell said, should have a voice in choosing the next associate justice, so he would wait until after the election.
Justice Ginsburg has left a broken and fractured world. If the leader of the U. S. Senate cannot act with decency, we will. Today, we mourn. Tomorrow? We ride. For Notorious RBG.