Opinion | Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death must inspire an era of ‘notorious renewal’ in the US

There was always something of the David versus Goliath in the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg up against US President Donald Trump – the diminutive versus the hulk, the thinker versus the non-thinker, the caring versus the uncaring. Someone of stature had to stand up to Trump and Ginsburg was one of the few who could take his measure.

And so, when the feminist icon was overwhelmed late last week by the cancer that had been stalking her for so many years, much of the world stood up and took notice.

Here in the United States, on seeing the incumbent American president dropping in the polls and vulnerable to Democrat Joe Biden in the coming election, many could not have helped wishing that fate had let this Wonder Woman, feisty to the end, ride out the hoped-for end of the Trump era just a couple of months and permit his successor to choose a sensible Supreme Court nominee to replace her at the end of January.

But “fate keeps on happening”, as the Hollywood screenwriter Anita Loos put it decades ago. And as fate would have it, there is now a vacancy on the US’ highest and most powerful court. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s allies are scrambling to fill it with someone who would no doubt prove to be the antithesis of the “Notorious RBG” as Bader was sometimes known, a play on the stage name of the late rap star “Notorious B.I.G.”