Then came the decisive blow. Sitting justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a liberal) passed away in 2020, just a few months before the presidential election. Ginsburg was well into her eighties and had been encouraged to resign several years earlier during President Obama’s first term, when the Democrats controlled the Senate. She refused. And Senate Republicans did what Senate Republicans do: they flip-flopped. Confirming a justice during a presidential election year suddenly wasn’t a problem. And in strode another conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, to replace Ginsburg.
