The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the rush by Trump and his cohorts to fill the Supreme Court vacancy are revealing the extent to which the USA has been flipped by reactionary elements, not conservative, but reactionary. What is being reacted to right now are three of the more significant social disruptions of the past 100 years: 1. the movement for Black civil rights. 2. the movement known as Women’s Liberation and 3. the gay rights movement. To hypocritically (because of McConnell’s refusal to move on Obama’s last appointment) replace Ginsburg with a right wing anti-feminist, especially a female anti-feminist, would represent an attempt to take down many of the gains made by women up to and including the present era. The patriarchy, in reasserting itself, wishes to deprive women of the right to choose whether or not to bear a child. Since this one issue is the single most galvanizing and polarizing issue in American life–even more than the pandemic–no compromise ever appears possible.
The first thing that came to mind when I heard that Justice Ginsburg had been readmitted to the hospital was that the patriarchy was fervently wishing for her demise so that abortion rights could be challenged in a right-to-life court. Hence, Trump’s supporters wouldn’t worry that he is an incompetent and mentally lazy president, filled with nonsensical ideas and dangerous notions. Nor would they feel the least guilt about celebrating Ginsburg’s death. They tell you that they stand up for unborn, for the future life of a child, even as they oppose the medical care and the financial well-being of the mothers who bear them. This stance represents pure, unadulterated oppression of women who assert the right to decide what to do with their bodies. Pretty soon, husbands will be free again to beat their wives.
The reaction to Black Lives Matter is much the same. The destruction of property and the looting of stores is less important, so Trump wants people to think, than the lives of people destroyed by decades of police brutality. Were there no riots at all, no street occupations and so forth, the results would have been no different. The reactionaries would be blaming the victim, as they always do. They would be supporting the oppressor, as they always do. Trump, in praising the police, reflects and embodies the desire for a white male, patriarchal society. That is what he does best.
Even as he claimed to be nominating a woman to be Ginsburg’s replacement, his hand gestures indicated that he was fondling a woman’s hips. So much for whatever “brilliant” woman he’d be nominating. If you were to ask him what it was that makes her brilliant, he would be unable to tell you. Will America devolve into a society where justice is no longer possible? For that to happen, the support of women who have scant regard for the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be essential.
While symbolically important, abortion is not the single most important issue of our time. The ravages of climate change for which reactionaries have no regard, the pandemic, for which Trump is a mischievous charlatan, the breathtaking disparities of wealth which he has exacerbated, the injustices against Black Americans by the so-called criminal justice system, the subverting of justice through presidential pardons–those are the issues that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death is serving to obscure. Better for these amoral people to fight the election on the issue of abortion rights than on the other issues. Here, at least, they don’t have to defend Trump’s gross incompetence.