The Fear Surrounding the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is Unhealthy

Over the past week, there has been a very strong emotional reaction to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I am not talking about the grief–it is perfectly normal for Ginsburg’s many admirers to grieve her loss. But it has gone beyond grief. There is a climate of intense fear surrounding Ginsburg’s death. Over the past few months, the Democrats have tried to make the 2020 election feel existential. They want us to feel that we have to vote for Biden, because otherwise democracy itself will be destroyed. This has led to a lot of exaggeration. I have been reluctant to write on it, because the reactions people are having are so extreme. But contrary to the increasingly hysterical narrative, there is little reason to think that Ginsburg’s death will have massive political consequences. Here’s why.

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Judges and Juries

One of the popular arguments for democracy as opposed to expert-driven, sophiarchist government is the notion that democracy is good for the same reasons that juries are good as opposed to judges. David Estlund makes just such an argument in Democratic Authority on the basis that all reasonable people can accept the jury model but not a system of judges due to uncertainty regarding the knowledge of the judges and that, by extension, all reasonable people can accept democracy but not government by experts. Today I aim to challenge this line of argument with a more critical examination of judges and juries and how we use them.

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