Friday night news broke that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed at 87, after battling pancreatic cancer. The death of the feminist, liberal icon shook the media to the core as many analysts appeared on cable television to fret about the status of abortion rights. New York Magazine’s Rebecca Traister appeared on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes to have an emotional breakdown panicking about abortion rights and how the evil right wing was succeeding in gutting the left’s “major legal victories."
Host Chris Hayes was more composed but just as dramatic about what this could mean for Americans and far-left causes such as Black Lives Matter. He opined:
This is a year of and an era of sort of like reckoning around race and gender particularly between #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, not coincidentally with Donald Trump as president and the defeat of the first woman nominee and like losing her at this point a day after yet another woman came forward to say the President of the United States sexually assaulted her. What does it mean to you?What does it say about where we are?
Traister lamented, “It is the world's most chilling and horrible poetry.” She fretted the “American right wing” has been trying to undo the left’s “great social movements and progress” for the past fifty years and they appeared to be succeeding. She ranted that abortion rights were already all but illegal:
The road to making abortion everything but technically illegal is open and we are traveling down already. So the major legal um victories of the mid-20th century- this has been the project of the Republicans! And yes, there is a horrifying poetry that this happening!
While his guest sipped what appeared to be wine, Hayes tried to calm her down by pointing out that polls reveal the majority of Americans support keeping Roe v. Wade when specifically asked so the left shouldn’t be so worried this will happen. Traister agreed but started to cry as she ranted it was still something she’s terrified about:
TRAISTER: So you raised a really interesting point. And that point is, this moment should not be a moment where anybody thinks it is over. That's an instinct. [starts crying] I have had within the past hour. One of the easiest things to think in this moment is well, that's it, it is done, right?
It cannot be! It is only done if everybody says well it’s done, there is nothing we can do. The fight that has to happen, and It has to happen from the Democratic Party, it has to happen in the Senate, it has to happen around public opinion and it has to happen around the expression of refusal to permit the system to be corroded the way they had been, that got it to this point. Remember, if Barack Obama had been able to appoint his justice, this would not mean the thing it does now and that was a breaking of how this country works. And we have to fight harder against that...
Expect much more media panicking over abortion in the weeks to come.
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Read the relevant transcript, below:
All in With Chris Hayes
8:51pm EST
9/18/20
CHRIS HAYES: This is a year of and an era of sort of like reckoning around race and gender particularly between me too and black lives matter, not coincidentally with Donald Trump as president and the defeat of the first woman nominee and like losing her at this point a day after yet another woman came forward to say the President of the United States sexually assaulted her. What does it mean to you?What does it say about where we are?
REBECCA TRAISTER: It is the world's most chilling and horrible poetry. I mean this has been the project of the American right wing since uh the great social movements and political and legal shifts of the mid 20th century has been to reverse all that progress and um, you know the American right had been working on this for decades, it’s not just during the Trump administration. This has been a project for decades. It is already- look You already had the voting rights act. You had labor protection gutted, you had environmental protection gutted you have even decisions like June medical services which you know some people sort of read as a benign thing. The road to making abortion everything but technically illegal is open and we are traveling down already. So the major legal um victories of the mid-20th century- this has been the project of the Republicans! And yes, there is a horrifying poetry that this happening-- I mean this is the first day of in-person voting in Virginia, right?
HAYES: Yes
TRAISTER: For the election and the day that we’re voting, perhaps for a Democratic President is the day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, and that will, if she's replaced, which I have every reason to believe she will be by Donald Trump and by the Republicans of the Senate, that would alter the course of the Supreme Court for generations.
I would like to think, you know, earlier in this election season when we were having fights about liberal and left wing policy reform. There were some talk about court reform and um it seems very unlikely to me that Biden administration, which is not for big crashing around structural institutions but the Senate confirmed it is not just Ginsburg's seat, confirmed lifetime appointments. Trump has appointed a record number lifetime judicial appointments! The courts are stacked right now by Donald Trump and by Republicans. I do think that one of the things we should, I mean I hope that there is a conversation about what there is that could be done about this and the possibilities of court reform as much as a long shot as they may seem!
HAYES: Here is the one thing that I think and I want to hear your response to this. The one thing that I think is important not to lose sight of, is sort of for the people that are against the side against the rollback, is that public opinion has moved in those people’s favor. We have seen remarkable changes in public opinion in some of the things related to race and policing.
But essentially here, and I think It is so important for people not to be scared of their own shadow Roe V. Wade is popular, overturning Roe V. Wade is incredibly unpopular. There are a lot of subtleties when it comes to abortion polling. A huge amount comes down to how you ask the question. But when you call the question that way, when you call the question essentially on Roe -- this is it, Roe or not, you get durable majorities,
TRAISTER: 60% or 70% majorities even in some purple and red states!
HAYES: I think this is just massively important for somebody to understand as we think about it. Don't be scared of a frontal political fight on Roe V. Wade, when a country that’s polarized on everything, support for Roe V. Wade routinely coming in at 65% or 70%.
TRAISTER: So you raised a really interesting point. And that point is, this moment should not be a moment where anybody thinks it is over. That's an instinct. [starts crying] I have had within the past hour. One of the easiest things to think in this moment is 'well, that's it, it is done,' right?
It cannot be! It is only done if everybody says 'Well it's done, there is nothing we can do.' The fight that has to happen, and It has to happen from the Democratic Party, it has to happen in the Senate, it has to happen around public opinion and it has to happen around the expression of refusal to permit the system to be corroded the way they had been, that got it to this point. Remember, if Barack Obama had been able to appoint his justice, this would not mean the thing it does now and that was a breaking of how this country works. And we have to fight harder against that. There has been a denialism including the Democratic Party about how hard Republicans were willing to fight to get what they wanted. Those who are horrified and chilled to their bones tonight in addition to being agonizingly sad and scared need to remember what got us to this moment was a right wing that was willing to fight as hard as hell over a period of decades, when everything was stacked against them, they fought and got here, where the death of one 87-years-old woman, is, you know has the possibility of determining 50 years ahead of us. And what those who are horrified in this moment have to be ready to do and willing to do is think about creative and energetic driven way to maintain the fight to keep this rollback from happening!
