Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Has Died

[Jolene Benoir]

Something that's been on my mind is how much worse my parents have gotten as they go into their 70's... it doesn't happen to everyone, but quite a few people become a lot more paranoid and xenophobic in their old age. I know of elderly people who somehow manage to completely avoid this transformation, but it happens and one day will happen to us Milenials... I just hope to be one of the people who avoid it.

Mind you, my father was never very progressive... he just got a lot worse. I think my mom still knows there is something wrong with Trump, but is very influenced by my dad. So maybe it's not that progressives suddenly get less progressive, but natural bigots just stop feeling the need to hide it and suppress it after a point.

Fox News. A lot of older folks were brought up to believe in the professionalism of the evening news, as in Walter Cronkite. They haven't cottoned onto the fact that the news is only as good as who is portraying it. Times have changed and they haven't fully understood the ways in which it has changed.

A daily diet of Fox News and other biased organizations takes it toll. The left isn't immune from it either, preferring online information that may or may not be heavily biased and influenced by outside organizations. Older folks are still glued to the tv, though.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Fox News. A lot of older folks were brought up to believe in the professionalism of the evening news, as in Walter Cronkite. They haven't cottoned onto the fact that the news is only as good as who is portraying it. Times have changed and they haven't fully understood the ways in which it has changed.

A daily diet of Fox News and other biased organizations takes it toll. The left isn't immune from it either, preferring online information that may or may not be heavily biased and influenced by outside organizations. Older folks are still glued to the tv, though.

I knew someone would bring up Fox News but it's not just that... there is a reason a lot of elderly people gravitate to Fox News over more left leaning voices like Rachel Maddow... Fox News is exploiting things that already happen in old age.

That said, I do believe and hope that younger people who grew up with tons of new scams and manipulation attempts remember to keep watching for them in their old age...

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I knew someone would bring up Fox News but it's not just that... there is a reason a lot of elderly people gravitate to Fox News over more left leaning voices like Rachel Maddow... Fox News is exploiting things that already happen in old age.

That said, I do believe and hope that younger people who grew up with tons of new scams and manipulation attempts remember to keep watching for them in their old age...

There's a bit of American Exceptionalism at play, as well, imo. People believe that THEY would never fall for propaganda. No, that was for the USSR and other totalitarian societies. THEY are so much more intelligent and democracy wise that it could never happen to them.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

I'm not quite as alarmist as most of my Leftie friends. The story hasn't finished playing out. The Dems absolutely have to go into Nuclear mode and inform the Turtle wing that if they pull this off before inauguration, the Dems are coming for them.

* Impose Term Limits on SCOTUS
* add DC and PR as states (I know DC is a unique case, but there are ways to give them representation).
* Expand the bench. Add 6 more Justices appointed by Biden and snub your noses at the R assholes.

These aren't my pipe dreams, they're things being mentioned by serving Senators who are just as irate about this as we are.

It cannot stand. Everything is at stake.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Fascism was a very large and successful political force in the US up until WW2, just as it was in the UK and much of Europe.

The defeat of fascism, at least in its Italian and German incarnations, didn't act as an inoculation against fascism -- many people must have had to rethink their views, but I'm wondering how far that rethinking actually went in many cases.

Forms of fascism and populist authoritarianism are clearly enjoying a revival in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and Poland, and were very much part of Vote Leave and everything that's followed in the UK, and I don't see why people are surprised it's returned in the US, too.

All those people who supported, or sympathised with, Father Coughlin, or the Silver Shirts, or the Bund, not to mention the KKK, didn't all suddenly change their minds as a result of WW2. The social and economic changes brought about by WW2 and increasing prosperity kept the political expression of these views more or less under the surface, but they never went away.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

There's a bit of American Exceptionalism at play, as well, imo. People believe that THEY would never fall for propaganda. No, that was for the USSR and other totalitarian societies. THEY are so much more intelligent and democracy wise that it could never happen to them.

I 100% agree. Most of these of these old conservatives will just immediately scoff ad the idea that they could possibly have anything to learn from other countries. ...like... the very notion that the USA could have fallen behind on anything at all is just rejected immediately as if you are trying to tell them 2 + 2 = 5.

 

[danielravennest]

I'm actually surprised the Republicans haven't named their nominee yet. Fucking vultures!

If they try to rush through a nomination before the election, they risk motivating Democrats more than they already are, and lose senate seats. The Democratic "flip the Senate" fund already picked up $7 million in a short time after Ginsberg's passing.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I 100% agree. Most of these of these old conservatives will just immediately scoff ad the idea that they could possibly have anything to learn from other countries. ...like... the very notion that the USA could have fallen behind on anything at all is just rejected immediately as if you are trying to tell them 2 + 2 = 5.

It is not just conservatives My sister, who voted for HRC last time, is arguing with me constantly about how she views the USA as the "Greatest country on Earth". She says she does not like Biden. I tell her about our horrendous maternity deaths, which lean toward high minority deaths. I tell her about how we don't have universal health care unlike most democracies. I tell her about the income divide. I show her graphs of our declining press freedoms. I'm not making much headway. Even with the pandemic, of which she is highly susceptible because she has COPD, I am finding it hard to communicate with her, even when I show her the tragic stories of those who have died.

She is terrified and thinks there is some huge crime wave coming to her town. She does not watch Fox News. She has been tapped into fear and I fear there is little I can do to combat that.

I blame this one ALL news organizations for giving him that platform.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

If they try to rush through a nomination before the election, they risk motivating Democrats more than they already are, and lose senate seats. The Democratic "flip the Senate" fund already picked up $7 million in a short time after Ginsberg's passing.

This is the plus, and I hope it's enough. Democrats are giving huge numbers of dollars to overcome this. We shall see if it is enough.

 

[danielravennest]

This is what the Republican Candidate for Senator from Georgia Doug Collins had to say about Justice Ginsberg's passing:


I left him a reply, but he can seriously go fuck himself with a thousand cacti!

I sent money to Jon Ossoff's campaign, the Democratic candidate for that office.

Note, Georgia has a *second* Senator up for election this year, but since the current officeholder announced retirement after the primaries, we will have a "jungle election", where all the candidates from all parties will be in a single list. If nobody gets 50% (likely, as there are 21 candidates, 4 of which have signficant poll numbers), there will be a runoff in December for the top two. So I can't recommend someone to support yet.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

This was bound to happen sooner or later. It just shows how fucked up the whole system of finding judges for the Supreme Court of the United States really is, and that it should really be scrapped and rebuild from scratch with more democratic elements builtin.

Most important the life long membership should be dumped. They should have a certain time span instead without the possibility of re-election.

This problem started with one Senator who refused to do his Constitutional duty back in February of 2016 and kept all of the Senate from being able to do so.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

This problem started with one Senator who refused to do his Constitutional duty back in February of 2016 and kept all of the Senate from being able to do so.

Yet this time..... my spouse said he thought we should up the SCOTUS justice count to 45 to 'honour' Twitler - then fill it all with liberal justices....

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

That's a side problem; the real problem is that the American consitution has been rigged on purpose by the founding fathers to actually prevent too much democracy to ever happen. It's an instrument to keep the ruling classes where they are - in power.

This, and that it is nowadays nearly impossible to change as well aside minor changes.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

This. I am going to vote early Monday and then I am going to sign up to be a poll worker. Both of my Senators will vote against this, so not really a need to pressure them, but I'm still going to contact them all the same. I am going to donate to Amy McGrath's campaign as well.

Everyone who has the financial ability to do so should contribute to Amy's campaign. She absolutely NEEDS to win! That is the only way we can end the corruption in Senate and free up the legislative logjam that is Turtle McTurtleface. The only way, besides removing Trump, we can take back our government!

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Everyone who has the financial ability to do so should contribute to Amy's campaign. She absolutely NEEDS to win! That is the only way we can end the corruption in Senate and free up the legislative logjam that is Turtle McTurtleface. The only way, besides removing Trump, we can take back our government!

Well, or just un-elect ALL the GOP incumbents that are up for re-election this year. There is more of them than there are Dems [unlike in '18] so more of a chance of just having a Dem majority in the Senate.

Not sure which would bring me greater joy - seeing him just out of office entirely, or seeing him still in the senate, but with no real power.... [I've a third option that would make me happier - him losing so badly he's punted back 150 years or something.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

This fucking disgusts me:

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Well, or just un-elect ALL the GOP incumbents that are up for re-election this year. There is more of them than there are Dems [unlike in '18] so more of a chance of just having a Dem majority in the Senate.

Not sure which would bring me greater joy - seeing him just out of office entirely, or seeing him still in the senate, but with no real power.... [I've a third option that would make me happier - him losing so badly he's punted back 150 years or something.

The major problem with keeping him in Senate is that, one day, possibly before he dies, Republicans will take back the Senate, and he'll be right back in power, rotting the Senate at its core. No, he needs to be removed, AND we need to flip the Senate.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

This fucking disgusts me:

I cannot give enough loud FUCK YOU'S to this.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

This fucking disgusts me:

Translation: "You really thought that Kavanaugh was bad? You've got no idea..."

 

[Sid]

If the GOP plays it smart, they might win the presidential election over this.
First they have to push forward a candidate quickly and then hope and pray that the Dems will go into defense and delay mode until after the elections.
That way they will have a great argument in their hands for all the christian nutters, anti abortion dwellers, homophobes and all conservatives in the USA to vote for 45 one more time, even if they were thinking to vote Dems this time, because 45 being dissappointing in his current job.
They all will feel that they can influence what will happen in the US for at least two decades if they get yet another conservative judge up there.
I hope I'm wrong about this, but fuck... this is the worst thing that could happen in this moment in the election race.