Thread by @gauravsabnis

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You will be missed so much. But you knew that.

Say hello to Justice Cotton.

Only Republican senators can save this country now.

Sleep is going to be hard to come by tonight. #NotoriousRBG

Feeling more despondent tonight than the night Trump won. A republican majority in the supreme court for at least a decade. Republicans are gonna go to town overturning progress on everything since the Civil War. Roe, Obergefell are dead. Civil Rights Act too possibly.

Trump's next pick is going to make Kavanaugh look like a liberal.

Getting a few "hey can you explain why this is such a big deal" messages from desi friends about Justice Ginsburg passing. Sorry, no emotional bandwidth left. Especially when it's pointless. The tweets upthread pretty much cover it.

The first major moment when I started running away from American libertarianism was around 2008 when a lot of "first principle" libertarians argued that the civil rights act was "state tyranny". Like "oh of course racism is wrong but state punishing racism is tyranny".

Now these Confederates, Nazis, Sanghis who pretend to be all about "liberty" will get a supreme court that will take a hatchet to societal progress over the last century or so. Forget Roe v Wade. These Republicans/Libertarians will mostly overturn Loving v Virginia.

Yup, I know overturning Loving v Virginia would make McConnell's own marriage illegal. As if he cares.

That of all the possible justices in the history of this country, Justice Ginsburg's seat is the one being filled by Donald Trump, that too after he stole a seat from Obama using elections as an excuse... That really hurts. Like the world is run by reality show producers.

Wife and I are exchanging sighs and rants and head shakes and of course, hugs, to cope with the loss of Justice Ginsburg.

Very realistic possibility.
Biden wins the election, but Trump refuses to concede (as he's said he will since 2015), takes it to the Supreme Court under some pretext, and his pick to replace RBG casts the deciding vote to bring him back.
Very realistic.

Reminder that historically, the Bill of Rights wasn't so much "here is what govt can't do to you" as it was "here is what Congress or the Federal Govt can't do to you". So DC couldn't restrict your free speech or religious freedom, but your state govt could, if they wanted.

It was supreme courts over generations and centuries who took the constitution beyond what some dudes 240 years ago thought. Interpreted it as a broader proscription against government overreach. That is the power of SCOTUS. To shape history and society.

Until Reagan came along, the general arch of SCOTUS tilted towards progressivism and individual liberty. Went from Dred Scott to Brown v BoE in less than a century. Since Reagan, we've had GOP appointees with a decidedly antebellum agenda. State sanctioned bigotry as the goal.