what will become of us?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death cannot be in vain. The real work to save our democracy starts today.
You know how you know your country’s democracy is hanging on by a thread? When the death of a 87-year-old woman who’s battled cancer for the past 20 years dies and seemingly sends it to the guillotine.
How I’m feeling now reminds me of how I felt when I watched PJ Harvey play the Pitchfork Music Festival in July 2017. That same day, Trump had been responsible for some other catastrophic calamity, of which there are so many by now I couldn’t even tell you which. Then Harvey and her band, all dressed in black, launched into their song “River Anacostia.” Its somber refrain — What will become of us?, oh / Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water — sent shivers down by spine and brought me to hot, salty tears, just as it does every time I hear it today.
So, that’s where I’m at right now. It’s unfortunate that we can’t take even a moment to celebrate the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an incredible woman who has single-handedly done so much for women’s rights and equality over many decades, before scrambling for our wallets to donate to Democratic swing-state Senate candidates, but here we are. In just the 12 hours immediately following the news of Ginsburg’s death, Democratic candidates and causes raised over $30 million on the fundraising platform ActBlue, and that momentum has still not died down.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader and gangrened turtle Mitch McConnell has already pledged to green-light a Senate vote for Ginsburg’s successor on the high court, and Trump tweeted early Saturday filling the SCOTUS vacancy should happen “without delay.” All this, despite McConnell’s famous pledge in 2016 that Merrick Garland, Barack Obama’s SCOTUS nominee, could not fill the vacancy left after Antonin Scalia’s death until after the election.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933-2020, at her SCOTUS confirmation hearing in 1993. (Photo: Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)
There are some glimmers of hope beyond the Democratic surge of donations. Some Republican senators are on record for previously stating they would not fill a SCOTUS vacancy this year. As early voting opened up in four states — Minnesota, Virginia, Wyoming and South Dakota — on Friday, voters lined up in droves. Among the lines in Minnesota, nary a red hat was to be seen, according to social media reports.
But those of us who would rather not see the U.S. continue to plunge into a totalitarian nation thanks to an administration pushing “patriotic education” in schools and blaming “blue states” for its own failed leadership on the coronavirus, we should take nothing for granted. I mean, hanging our hopes on Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham? We should know better. Yes, donating to Democratic candidates in winnable swing-state races is important. (Check out the Swing Left Fund to easily support candidates in 12 key states.) But we also need to be making our own voting plans, talking to everyone we know about voting and, among loved ones who might somehow still be on the fence, having those difficult and vulnerable conversations about why this election matters so deeply to us.
What is the best way to approach those conversations? What are the best talking points to pursue? I don’t think there’s any silver bullet here, but The Atlantic published an important story worth reading last week about an experiment conducted in Wisconsin. An advocacy group called Opportunity Wisconsin saw success in talking to persuadable conservative and moderate voters about one of the president’s perceived strengths — the economy — instead of his many agreed-upon weaknesses:
“There was this perception that the president’s economic strength was based on the stock market or jobs numbers, but when you drilled down a little more and had conversations with people about their own experience, they did not see any benefit from the president's tax law or his opposition to raising the minimum wage,” the group’s program director told The Atlantic.
These findings in Wisconsin suggest an upsetting but important hypothesis for progressive-minded folks: Many or most Trump supporters simply don’t seem to care about his clearly and repeatedly demonstrated racism, about his calling military veterans “losers” or about the long list of women he has sexual assaulted (a list that just got longer last week, in case you didn’t notice). They care about the digits in their bank account.
As I prepare to have my own difficult conversations with my own family, this is top of my mind. I plan to ask questions, listen intently and not argue. But when presented with Fox News talking points on the economy or on Joe Biden, I will stand firm in offering accurate information, like how the White House’s lack of leadership on COVID-19 — even blocking the USPS’s attempt to mail five free reusable face masks to every American — have not only cost American lives but also compounded the economic fallout from the pandemic. Or how his trade war with China has brought soybean farmers across the nation to their knees. Or how our nation’s international standing has plummeted this year due to the U.S. handling of the health crisis.
I don’t know if this appeal will be successful. But we have to carry on Ruth Bader Ginsburg legacy of surviving and speaking truth to power. We have 45 days to remove President No. 45 from office, and save this nation’s democracy. As Ginsburg once said, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” Let’s get together and do everything we can, folks. It’s go time.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was mourned in a candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C., on Friday. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
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Watch: Did you realize that actress Drew Barrymore launched a talk show last week? Indeed, she has, and it’s a decidedly surreal viewing experience. Just take this “Drew’s News” segment on snake eggs that went viral last week:
In the middle of a global pandemic, a simmering racial justice movement and a nation’s struggle for democracy, the segment feels like it’s being beamed in from another planet, or like one of those fake 30 Rock shows. It almost feels like Barrymore is either impersonating herself or doing her own sketch comedy in the style of quarantine-comedy sensation Meg Stalter.
After being tagged so many times in shares of Barrymore’s snake-eggs clip, Stalter offered her own impersonation of the Never Been Kissed icon’s bizarre foray into the daytime talk format:
Where does the Barrymore show begin and Stalter’s brilliant comedy begin? Who’s to say? But maybe surrealism is just what this historic moment calls for. (Quick shoutout: Props to my buddy James Cardis for co-producing a comedy showcase featuring Stalter out here in these suburban streets before she hit the digital pages of Harper’s Bazaar. Did you know he just launched a Substack as well? Go ahead and read and subscribe to The Exurban Research Institute for more #thoughts from Batavia.)
Read: Speaking of surrealism, you need to read this short essay from the Washington Post on what happened when one woman’s neighbor asked her if he could have a tomato from her garden. You’ll want to stick around for the very last line because the kicker to this piece is one of the most shocking single things I’ve read this year.
Listen: This past week, my partner Stefin and I celebrated our 11th anniversary together. As we both look ahead to how we’ll stay sane this fall and winter as the weather outside becomes less welcoming, we celebrated by ordering a rowing machine and second television. (If that doesn’t scream middle age, I don’t know what does?)
It’s honestly a pretty sacred time of year for us and the soundtrack to our union is typically dominated by one particular artist, the British singer-songwriter Natasha Khan, a.k.a. Bat for Lashes. It was her 2009 album, Two Suns, that was playing on my roommate’s record player the first time we ever kissed 11 years ago this month. Last year, we listened to her latest album, Lost Girls, which was released the same week as our 10th anniversary while I got down on one knee and proposed on our front porch. It is Khan’s dreamy, witchy and sultry music I always find myself coming back to this time of year, and anytime I find myself straying too far from my center. Enjoy: