"The evil that men do lives after them …
"
- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
The news hit at five o'clock last night like an anvil dropping. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was dead – suddenly – overnight, in his sleep, while visiting friends in Texas. Perfect. In Texas. Where all used up, washed up, past their prime and past their time Republican dinosaurs should go to die. With the swiftness and suddenness of the Citizens United decision, which Scalia championed, unashamedly – and has changed the course of elective politics in this nation of ours – the Court's judge who sat furthest right, as it were, was gone. Within hours, the jockeying began, initiated by Republicans with the announcement from Mitch McConnell that the "vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president." But let's set that aside for just a few minutes and think about the man and what has just happened.
Through the night and certainly this morning on the talk shows, there was weeping from both sides of the aisle about how beloved the guy was, even if you disagreed with his politics … what his hobbies were, how he was a such a man-about-town, with his wife in tow on the social circuit … everything you'd expect from those who live in the cesspool of shallowness that is Washington, D.C. Well, at this point, I'm less concerned with Scalia's hobbies than I am the damage he did to this country over three decades.
He was a "traditionalist" they've said. Maybe he was – like George Wallace was a traditionalist – a self-proclaimed constitutionalist until he wasn't, always and only for the purpose of satisfying his own personal opinions. As an "originalist" he claimed that his method of constitutional interpretation was to look into the meaning of words and concepts as they were understood by the Founding Fathers. But if that was true, he wouldn't have written the 2008 opinion which overturned Washington D.C.'s handgun ban, freeing up individuals to own a gun for private use – and not just in connection with service in a militia, as stated in the 2nd Amendment and as intended by the Founding Fathers.
One could go on and on about the evil that Scalia did which will live after him, but if we toss aside everything else, it's impossible to toss aside the fact that it was Scalia, conspiring with his right-wing brethren on the Court, who gave us George W. Bush – a brutal vestige of his time on the bench.
And now, according to a whole herd of elephants, he's not to be replaced until after the election this November when, God willing, a Republican is elected – and the more conservative, the better, by which to properly fill Scalia's place, right? Hell, in last night's Republican date, 'ole Donald Trump called for delaying the process, as if the business of this branch of the government was going to come to a screeching halt for a year-plus. Hey Donald, this may be beyond your abilities of comprehension, we're trying to have democracy here!
There are so many reasons to be joyous about the death of Antonin Scalia. But most of all, this occasion finally and officially marks the end of the Reagan Era; a finale that has been 35 years in the making. Reagan initiated and presided over one of the most despicable chapters in this country's history, defined by a shift to the right that included an unprecedented hatred for minorities, women and gays. In naming Scalia to the Supreme Court in 1986, Reagan ensured that such a legacy would continue, at least for a while. But now Scalia is gone. And the era of Reagan is – thank the Lord – finally over.
Scalia was said to remark to those who complained about his role in the ascension of George W. Bush to the White House, to "get over it." Well, to those who are saddened by the death of Scalia – an unmitigated, unflinching, hypocritical asshole – I would simply laugh, and say, "get over it."
