EMERGENCY POD: The Death Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Could Mean The Death Of Our Country
As shockwaves reverberated across the country at the news of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman share a solemn moment to reflect on her monumental impact on the country. As a fierce warrior and defender of women's rights, the very real concern is with her passing is that the Trump administration will nominate an ideologue that will irrevocably change this country for many decades, if not forever.
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In my lifetime, I expect to see three, four, perhaps even more women on the high court bench.
Women not shaped from the same mold, but of different complexions.
I ask no favor for my sex.
All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.
Hey everybody.
It's Jared Yates-Saxon here with Nick Houselman.
I don't know, man.
Uh, Here we are.
We're doing an emergency podcast.
Word just came out a few minutes ago that Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away.
And yeah, I'm trying to wrap my head around both the gigantic loss plus also What we're looking at here, but I think before we talk about the ramifications and the consequences, uh, we have to say that this is a, a huge loss of a person, an American hero, and, um, just an absolute tragedy that strikes on so many different levels.
It is, um, it's heartbreaking and it is a, um, it's a punch in the gut, man.
Yeah.
She had dictated a statement before death, which was, quote, my most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.
So it was clear that she was trying to hang on as long as she could to prevent Donald Trump from appointing somebody.
She tried so hard.
Yeah.
Isn't that amazing?
She was riddled through with cancer.
How many times was she hospitalized in the past few months?
It was constant.
She tried to hold on.
She got to mid-September and it was obvious that she cared about this country so much That she attempted to make it to November to try and keep this situation from happening.
I mean, just just a hero, just an absolute hero.
And, you know, what she understood was that, you know, and so I think when this list came out from Trump recently about his, you know, the list for Supreme Court justices, we didn't we kind of made fun of it and we kind of couldn't believe that Tom Cotton was on it and Ted Cruz.
But what I think it was that the signal was, maybe we didn't pick up on it, was that they must have known too how serious her condition was because there was, you know, they were trying to reassure us that she was OK and she can make it through the most recent crisis that she had.
And so obviously that must have gotten out.
And, you know, we need to discuss what that legacy is going to be.
I don't know if we need to discuss her as well.
But the kick in the gut for me is to think that Yeah, we already talked about the judges that they've already appointed in the lower courts that are going to affect the country for decades and decades but this appointment Could fundamentally change the country, you know until we're not around anymore either It could it could change the country for generations, right?
That's no joke.
I mean No, I mean this is um You know, I Again, I don't want to, I don't want to undermine the fact that this is a, uh, a huge loss for the country just to have lost such a, uh, inspiring warrior.
Uh, Ginsburg was, uh, one of the defining leaders of, of equality in this country really was probably did more, uh, than, than nearly any other, uh, Supreme court justice.
In terms of equality and a beautiful mind, a talented woman, just an absolute inspiration, I hope for generations to come.
So one of the things that happened when Trump released his names was, you know, we reacted to it involved Ted Cruz or whatever, and Tom Cotton.
was uh one of the names and i'm not saying tom cotton's gonna get the nomination but i want to point out what tom cotton did immediately we talked about it on the podcast he within minutes within minutes of his name being floated for that position tweeted out that uh roe v wade needed to be uh done away with now that's not to say that tom cotton's gonna be the nominee but we have to talk about the fact that um we'll get to that in a second what a loss
um he immediately said that Yeah.
This, for the next few weeks, because you know they're gonna try and fill it.
I mean, they're gonna try and fill it.
There's no way around that.
They're gonna try and fill it.
It is going to be imbued with so much cultural rage and division.
Like, what just happened was A cement block just got thrown into the bathtub.
And let me tell you, it was already, it was already tumultuous.
We were already looking at the potential for violence and we were already looking at the potential for extremists and terrorists involving themselves in the election and the possibility of an insurrection act.
I, I really shudder to think right now about what this is going to mean.
Not just for the future of our rights, because that's one thing that we have to discuss.
But what this is going to do in the next few weeks is going to be really bad, man.
Really bad.
Well, you know, not to try and paint a silver lining on anything, but let's not forget that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, then supposedly it goes back to the states, and states get to decide whether they can have a legal or illegal abortion.
So, you know, theoretically, it's hard to understand how that what that's going to mean.
Now, I just looked it up because I was kind of curious how long it takes to nominate Supreme Court justice.
And so on Wikipedia, which I suppose we could trust, it says the average number of days from from nomination to final Senate vote since 1975 is 67 days, 2.2 months, while the median is 71 days, 2.3 months.
2.2 months, while the median is 71 days, 2.3 months.
So obviously-- and I guess the thing is they don't care if it happens after the election, because they can do it in the lame duck part of the year But in theory, there isn't enough time.
Well, in theory, Donald Trump should have been removed from office for treason by now.
Right.
I mean, they'll push it.
And here's the thing.
This is why it's so bad.
You know, obviously, they're going to try and push it.
And I tweeted this before we got on here.
The darkest poetic irony is that before the Republicans go all in on Donald Trump, they're going to be revealed for the hypocrisy of the Merrick Garland Act, right?
They're going to try and push this thing as quickly as humanly possible, even if they don't.
The presidential election is now in the eyes of Trump supporters.
It's going to be, I mean, you know, the idea that there are Antifa terrorists and there's some sort of a civil war brewing.
There's also going to be this nomination hanging in the balance.
Do you know what I mean?
Like we are getting ready to watch.
We're getting ready to watch something, not just unprecedented, but, um, We're getting ready to watch one of the most unbelievable and dangerous elections become even worse.
This is like throwing a gallon of gasoline on a raging fire.
To read between the lines, it also sounds like there might have been a lot of Trump supporters who were disgusted with his behavior, don't like him, and we're going to sit this one out.
And because they can rally around this, they're going to vote.
Now, the interesting thing about this is that He could nominate somebody, and it might not get all the way through before the election, and then what happens?
Does the next president get to redo it and nominate somebody else?
It's a really confusing thing to figure that out, because there's enough time in theory, even if it was done slowly, to make it happen before January 17th, whatever that date is.
Does that affect these voters who might not have gone out for him anyway?
I don't know.
Now, let's look at it on the other side.
Perhaps this will speak to so many people who would never vote for Trump, who would never vote anyway, and maybe that will turn out the vote against him as well.
I don't know, but there is that notion of feeling futile because He's going to nominate somebody beforehand.
The vote almost doesn't matter in terms of what that pick is going to be because he's got it anyway, right?
Does that make sense?
Well, listen, I don't think you're wrong on any of these fronts, but you're still looking at this like an election.
This is a holy war.
That's what just happened tonight.
This is now going to be a holy war.
This is going to tell the evangelical right, the extreme evangelical That returning of Roe v. Wade is within their grasp, right?
Like, that's a possibility now.
That's in play.
And because that's in play, how could they let the election go?
How could they let an election, you know, go off and possibly be lost?
It's almost scarier, the idea That he wouldn't get the nominee through before the election.
Because then, I'm sorry, but this changes, this changes everything on every front.
If he gets someone in before, of course, that's dangerous because he will have a justice in there who could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, and he'll ride that in into November, right?
That's one thing, where he gets somebody in and it does this damage.
That's one problem.
Another problem is that he doesn't and that he turns up the temperature on this and he makes it a holy sectarian war for power.
And he'll do it, man.
You think he's above that?
I mean, he's already got us to the brink of a civil war.
I mean.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
It's not just Roe v. Wade either.
No.
I think it's everything.
It's every, every progressive.
It's presidential elections too.
Yeah.
It's, it's for without question, it's election.
Cause you know, we, we, we know they're going to contest this.
So that's even more important that they have this guy in there beforehand.
Um, and what happens if we, so what if they get him in before, or I keep saying him as if I'm, we know it's going to be a guy.
Well, right.
So yeah, they get, they get whoever their guy is in and then maybe that's the deciding vote.
Well, let's go ahead and take it down the other avenue.
That's the problem.
There are no good paths right now.
This is all bad.
Take it down the other avenue.
This person doesn't get seated before the election.
There are massive, massive litigious problems with the election, and we get to a Supreme Court that could possibly be tied.
Right.
I'm forgetting what happens then.
Someone has to decide, right?
Is it the Chief Justice?
Well, no, what ends up happening.
So I, they can't, they can't rule.
So like on one hand, if there's like a dispute about the election, most of the time it's going to get thrown into the House of Representatives.
But like, think about Bush v. Gore.
Bush v. Gore was about the recount in Florida.
If it comes down to a state or a contested vote, what the hell ends up happening if you have a Supreme Court that can't rule on it?
I mean, this is a perfect, this is a perfect storm on, Every possible level.
There's nothing good in this.
Right.
Do we have to bring up the McConnell-Gorsuch situation as well?
Because, you know, his whole thing was, you know, let the American people decide.
That's why we're not going to bring Merrick Garland in front of the Senate.
But now he likes to say, well, that's because the Senate and the White House were not of the same party.
And he actually tried to cherry pick the notion that you'd have to go back to 1870 something.
So you found a Supreme Court nominee that was nominated when you had a different Senate and different political party in the House, in the White House.
Oh.
Which is ridiculous because, you know, just how often are there openings to the Supreme Court anyway, much less do they happen to line up with the political parties in whatever House he's talking about.
So it's but but we yeah, I guess we don't bring it up.
We know he's they're going to nominate somebody and they're going to do a shit eating grin on his face.
Right.
He'll do this happily and proudly.
Matter of fact, here's the thing.
Man, I just went from very, very worried to very pissed off thinking about this.
Dude, he's gonna make a joke out of it.
It's gonna be the biggest slinkin' nod.
They're going to rub our noses in this fact that they pulled this on Garland and now they're going to do this.
And by the way, before we got on here, I thought about turning on Fox News.
I can't.
I can't.
There's no way because they're going to launder this thing so quickly.
You are going to watch, and that's the other thing, the right feels it.
They know that their fingertips are right there, right?
They know that they have the opportunity right now to remake the future of this country.
And by the way, we talked about this on the podcast that we taped on Thursday.
It came out today.
You want to talk about patriotic education?
You want to talk about, like, how things like that are going to get passed and then go through a constitutional check?
You want to see how Trump can suddenly become an authoritarian dictator?
It happens when you take over a Supreme Court.
And not only that, but now you're going to have two justices with Kavanaugh and whoever this person is that they put in, who are going to be openly, openly partisan and openly vengeful towards the left.
I mean, we are looking at We're looking at a, like we were saying in the very beginning, it's a generational changing moment right now.
And you're not being alarmist about Kavanaugh because he already openly threatened to get back at Democrats.
He said it!
In his testimony.
He said it aloud.
He said it aloud.
Yeah.
So we know that already.
And yeah, this is going to now, you know, and listen, she could have stepped down.
You know, during Obama's administration and let him pick somebody who was, you know, 40 years old.
And she didn't.
And that's her choice.
But it really looks, you know, I mean, nobody could have ever predicted what was going to happen, certainly with that choice.
I think that Obama was like, you know, well, actually, no, that was a surprise too anyway.
But the bottom line is, is, you know, I guess we couldn't have predicted that what McConnell would have done with Gorsuch.
To begin with.
And here we are.
But it really is.
I mean, you're right.
This is this is the big, big, big step.
This is the you know, we've been taking small steps towards completely taking over as a dictatorship or as a you know, what's the word we're looking for?
Authoritarian regime yes, but fascism fascistic regime, but yeah, but this is a big step like you know I mean these were baby steps.
We're kind of moving along.
They're inching along.
This is a giant leap if they get to do this you know and I want to tell people this and I want you to remember this People think about the Supreme Court particularly in the modern era And they think about a court that maybe has been on the wrong side of a lot of cases.
I mean, like a Citizens United, you know, Bush v. Gore, whatever.
The Supreme Court in the past, man, has upheld segregation.
It has legalized eugenics and forced sterilization.
They have ruled on things that were cut and dry, right and wrong.
And have given flight and power to incredible injustices.
They really have.
People need to understand that.
That this was like one of those things.
I don't know about you, but it was like Roberts.
Roberts was a surprise, obviously.
He's a swing jote.
He is swing vote.
He is a justice of conscience.
One of the things that let me sleep at night was the fact that I didn't think that Roberts was going to be able to sit there and rule, you know, on on like things and be really, really in on the purpose of injustice and cruelty.
In this case, the scenario that we are now talking about, Roberts becomes part of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court.
And I want people to think about that.
That's how far this would move, is that Roberts would suddenly become center-left on the Supreme Court if this gets to go through.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it happens somewhat generally and anecdotally that as time goes by, a lot of times the people you think are really conservative end up kind of being liberal in their decisions.
Kennedy was like that in the beginning or by the end.
And I want to say this, too, because I would be remiss if I didn't.
Trump would have brought a third of the court in one term.
Next this pick that's the problem.
And I don't want to say this too because I would be remiss if I didn't Trump would have brought a third of the court in one term A president who lost the popular vote by millions And won the vote with the help of a foreign nation He would have placed in one term If you want to talk about this and you want to be honest about this
The Supreme Court is a flawed institution and it has been for a very long time It actually created out of whole cloth its ability to rule on the Constitution as a way to get back to Against somebody like Thomas Jefferson, but that isn't the whole of it this whole life This whole, the way that they're nominated, the way that they're put up, it's a fraud and it's a flaw.
And we're going to see that.
Trump, just by a fluke, a person who didn't win the popular vote and is part of a, I mean, the only reason the Republican Party holds any power is because, first of all, it keeps its people in an alternate reality of its own choosing.
It also disenfranchises people, but it's also aided by a system that was set up to prioritize slaveholding states and white slaveholders.
And we're going to get to a point where an authoritarian asshole with dictatorial ambitions will have given, in one term, just by a fluke of timing, would have taken over a third of the court.
Right.
And a guy like Kavanaugh was never even qualified to be on the Supreme Court as it is.
And a rapist.
And so many of the other judges they've been nominating are not qualified.
This is the problem.
It's completely ideologues.
Now then again, Clarence Thomas is the same way.
He's an ideologue.
He's a Kavanaugh.
And we just didn't have—I mean, listen, he had his own confirmation issues that got completely buried.
And you know what?
We can connect Biden to that in a very interesting way.
I'm just kind of trying to study right now to figure out, well, like, is there anything that Democrats could possibly do to slow this thing down?
But again, I think that the more interesting question that becomes, if they can slow down the actual vote or the confirmation process, but they start it, then what happens if the election happens in the middle of it?
You know, it's not clear.
There's a new president.
Let's just say Biden wins.
It looks like McConnell, by the way, is going to win his Senate race, which sucks.
I don't know, we never talked about that, but they put McGrath in instead of the guy that actually seemed more popular and she's getting killed.
So the bottom line is he's going to ram it through, right?
Somehow they're going to be able to control Assembly long enough to get him through without any input from the new president.
And it's those moments when you start to think, okay, do you want to live in this country?
That's going to outlaw abortion?
I'll say this.
Well, abortion will be the tip of the spear.
You are talking about a party that is focused on corporatism.
You will see a Supreme Court.
And by the way, the moment that they get somebody in the lawsuits that will go through just to get to the Supreme Court, we're talking about we're talking about voting We're talking about corporate rights.
We're talking about rolling back worker protection.
And by the way, if you thought Trump did a job on environmental standards, mercury and water, pollution in the air, all of that, see what happens when all of these energy companies see a way to make a buck with diminishing resources during a climate catastrophe and a Supreme Court on their side.
By the way, the hysterectomy thing, that's the tip of the spear.
Right?
Because I have to tell you that when things start getting worse, you're going to see people put to death.
You're going to see people put into slave labor.
You're going to see unbelievable oppression.
Now that's, that's the reality of what we're facing.
But I will say this.
I feel, I don't know how you feel.
Um, I feel like I've gotten the shit slapped out of me tonight.
I feel beat up.
I feel tired.
But I want people to hear this, and I think it's really, really important.
The fight's not done.
It's not over.
Right.
It feels like a death of a loved one.
The problem is, you know, we don't want to sort of take away from Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a person passing away.
But what she represents is so much bigger than everybody.
And she knew that, too.
She clearly understood that.
She knew that.
But here's the thing.
We've been talking for months, and I've been working for years.
We've been talking about the danger.
We've been talking about the wolf at the door.
That's what this is.
The wolf is at the door, right?
This is a five alarm disaster.
And People need to understand that we've been talking about theoreticals, we've been talking about what could happen, could this happen, what if this happens, you know, when do we break the glass?
We are in it, man.
We are in it right now.
This thing that has happened, this tragedy, and rest in peace, rest in power, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you have earned it, and you are an absolute hero, but we are We are in the shit, man.
We're in the shit right now.
And people need to get serious because politics has never been a spectator sport.
It's never been a spectacle that we're supposed to watch.
This was supposed to be our fight.
This was supposed to be what we did.
This is supposed to be where we got some skin in the game.
And we have a whole lot of skin in the game right now.
This is not a time to sit back and be cowed because your life depends on it.
The life of your kids, your grandkids and generations to come depends on this.
This is go time.
This is a big deal.
I don't even know if this would require a march and some sort of big demonstration across the country.
You know, let's not forget there are things that Republicans need from the Democrats.
At some point, things are going to have to come up that they might need to get done.
But I guess the way they play the game now, it doesn't seem to matter.
They'll torpedo everything else to get this in.
So yeah, it feels so helpless is really where we're at, you know what I mean, as a death feels.
Don't forget police brutality and police reform.
You know, seeing where we're at with Black Lives Matter, it's only a matter of time until some of these cases probably come up to the Supreme Court and they have to figure out what we're going to do about police.
And I shudder to think when you get guys like Barr who are, you know, that kind of ideology, it's going to be a police state.
Here's what I would say.
There are two things to do tonight.
One is to mourn.
You need to mourn.
Because she was a hero.
She was an icon and a hero and somebody that we should learn from and somebody that we should try and emulate as much as we possibly can.
Along with the morning, tonight, and tomorrow, and in the next couple of days, this weekend, however you want to approach it, it's some time for some deep introspection.
It's time to start thinking about what this is and what it means.
And do you want to be on the right side of history?
Do you do you want to stave off a disaster?
And by the way, like you were saying, it's a police state.
It's rolling back of all of this stuff.
It's it's absolute authoritarianism.
It is a hell worse than we can really describe, man.
You know what I mean?
Like we try really hard on this show to warn people about what's going on and what can potentially happen.
And, you know, that's the other thing.
Like we're steeped in it.
We're studying it.
And it still surprises us sometimes by its cruelty and awfulness and its hellishness.
Um, it could get a lot worse.
I mean, it's really hard to tell you how bad this could get if, if, um, if we don't get the right beats, you know what I mean?
If we don't get, if we don't win the right fights and get dealt the right cards, it's, it's, it could get really, really bad.
It's time for some introspection.
It's time to think about what's important to you and what this whole thing is worth and what a decent human future should look like and what you're willing to give for it.
It is.
I wish I could say that there's a clear path to being able to achieve what you're describing.
Now, you know, if Biden wins, it's supposed to be this cause for rejoice because Trump is out and we can finally move on.
But no, it's going to now be tempered with whatever is going to happen over the next 45 days before the election.
And I think you're right, especially when you're talking about how Trump is now going to pivot in how he's going to speak and then what he's going to try and do now.
This is another, um, you know, stream for him, uh, to call more votes from a desperate man who's not, doesn't have enough votes as it is now.
Um, and maybe that'll have an effect.
Maybe it'll have an effect negatively.
I can only hope.
He's going to speak to extremists.
That's who he's talking to.
He's going to be talking to people who believe they're in a holy war.
By the way, I haven't looked yet, but I guarantee you that the QAnon crowd right now is losing their minds.
I have to imagine the evangelical far-right is losing their minds right now.
They are celebrating and he is going to be speaking to those People that's what the pivots going to be and you need to understand that these are people who they see it They feel it they taste it.
They smell it and they are not going to let this thing get away easily It's just not it's QAnon anti-abortion They're they think that they're protecting babies They think that Democrats are that they hate babies and they're satanic and they will kill them.
However, They have one fantasy after another that abortion is actually some sort of satanic sacrifice.
Like it's all wrapped up in the same thing.
And that's and hear me out.
Trump is going to be out telling people because he wants to win this bad Nick.
He's going to be out telling Democrats who are going to be working against this thing.
That they're baby killers.
I mean, I wouldn't be shocked to hear that out of his mouth.
Like, tomorrow.
Or the day after.
Right?
These people hate babies.
They want to kill babies.
I mean, it is... It's going to be ugly on a level that I, uh... And you've heard... You've known me for a while now.
You've known me for a few years.
I've talked about how dangerous this stuff is.
This thing is going to be on a level that I don't even think that I imagined.
I really believe that.
I really, truly believe that.
I don't know, man.
We will be back next week and I assume that when we are, we're still going to be wrestling with this thing.
It's going to be a lot.
Like I said, take tonight to mourn and really, really look in the mirror and look into your soul and yourself and figure out what you want and what it means to you and how we're going to do this thing because we have a lot of soul searching and a lot of planning to do and a lot of fighting to do.
It's not over.
There's still hope, but Jesus, God, that's a bad moment.
