Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Progressive America: ‘My Hope Is We Will Go Back to the Way It Was’

Even as the Supreme Court awaits another likely appointment by President Trump in the next few years, Ruth Bader Ginsburg remains ultimately optimistic. The Wall Street Journal reports that while attending a play on Saturday, Ginsburg offered remarks at the end of the play. The senior Supreme Court justice added that she is optimistic about the United States “over the long haul.”

“My hope is in my lifetime we will get back to the way it was,” Ginsburg told the audience.

Additionally, according to the Journal, Ginsburg also talked history for a bit, discussing her confirmation process and that of her deceased peer and surprising friend, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

“I love this play and the idea behind it that people with very different views on important things can genuinely like each other,” Ginsburg said of The Originalist.

Ginsburg, nominated by President Bill Clinton, was confirmed 96-3 in 1993; Scalia was confirmed 98-0 in 1986. Ginsburg spoke of her friendly relationships with some Republican senators, reminding us of a time when politics were far less contentious and when friendship and agreement with the other side wasn’t unheard of.

(Granted, this was also a time when America wasn’t living under a president who called Mexican immigrants rapists, belittled prisoners of war, and mocked people with disabilities.)

In either case, Ginsburg is right that a lot has changed in recent years — both for better and for worse in a variety of ways. In the years immediately after abortion became legal on a federal level, laws around the procedure were liberalized, clinics safely offering the service existed in plenty and were easily accessible; maternal mortality rates shuttered.

Today, the United States has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the industrialized world, and 87 percent of counties across the country have no clinics offering the procedure.

Marriage equality is legal but corporations and wealthy donors own the political process. Segregation is illegal but voter ID laws are taking us back to the 19th century.

“You can look forward to it moving back,” Ginsburg said, referring to a time in America’s history when progress was once a priority.

America’s best isn’t behind us, but as recent events indicate, neither is our worst. Perhaps, considering all the horrors and atrocities and all that’s gone down since 1776, it would be a mistake to glorify and romanticize the past. But as Ginsburg points out, it would also be a mistake to be pessimistic and give up.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.