Graham’s words couldn’t be clearer, nor could those of Senator Chuck Grassley, the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who blocked Garland. Just last month, Grassley said that he “couldn’t move forward” with a Trump nominee this year because of the 2016 standard. If Republicans force a justice on us, it’s because they believe that standards are for suckers, and people who hold power need not be constrained by any pledge or institutional tradition.
According to Ginsburg’s granddaughter, the justice made a dying wish: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
It doesn’t matter how exhausted we are, or how difficult the odds. In this hell-spawned year, we can either give up, or give everything we can to stop some of America’s worst men from blotting out the legacy of one of our very best women.