“Simply put, then, the key to heroism is a concern for other people in need—a concern to defend a moral cause, knowing there is a personal risk, done without expectation of reward.”  – Philip Zimbardo.

The death of Ruth Ginsburg radically alters the tenor, intensity, consequences, and import of the presidential campaign.

Nobody needs a pundit to tell us that.

What interests me the most over this explosive and jarring weekend is that the 2020 election campaign has its first real hero – a gangly 87-year-old jurist who has somehow become a cultural icon.

Ruth Ginsburg is a hero to many people. She is now just as important as Donald Trump or Joseph Biden Jr. I’m not blowing smoke.

Just Google Memorial Services for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, pour yourself a drink, and go on a wrenching tour of America – every state, every city. You really cannot and should not underestimate the power of this person.

Over the weekend, there was a great outpouring of love for her from women, many men,  young people, working mothers (she was a role model), Democrats, progressives, liberals, and feminist activists.

These are all cohorts and voting blocks the Biden campaign desperately wants, voters that will allow them to win the election in a big enough margin to avoid eternal and divisive court battles.

Her death and the already bitter conflicts raging about her replacement are dispiriting and frightening. The Republican Party, following its leader, has become a part of about one-third of the people, the other two-thirds can go to Hell.

Our democracy is broken and will need to be considered and repaired. Trump has succeeded in tearing the country apart. The Republican Party will almost surely support him. The Democrats have agreed to help.

The rhetoric on both sides is out of control, over the top.

Neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump has the strength or vision to even try to talk to one another and heal these wounds, rather than widen and deepen them.

But that’s for the daily news to report.

I’m more interested in the impact that Ginsburg’s death will have on the election; we have not had a genuine hero functioning in America since John McCain fell ill, or John Kennedy before him. Heroes in American politics are rare, few, and far between.

When one comes along, big things happen. Ruth Ginsburg had a powerful vision of America. Decency without cruelty, civility without hostility, freedom without compromise. She just kept going, and never quit or despaired.

And she was not just a hero to women. That is a disservice to her work. Men are grieving for her as well. She fought for a fairer society for all of us.

It makes an enormous difference to have a hero suddenly pop up in the middle of a presidential campaign. You can see this for yourselves in the coming weeks.

Trump is banking on his newly drooling evangelical supporters to come rushing to his rescue if he chooses a conservative advocate of religious freedom and an almost certain opponent of abortion rights.

What you can’t win at the ballot box, you can get from the courts. I pity poor Jesus, these people ought to pray he never comes back.

Power and religious fervor will drive fresh donors and existing supporters to his campaign. He feels no compunction to give us all a say in this important decision. In fact, his whole idea is to deny us that chance.

But fear and hero worship are among the most powerful forces in politics. Ginsburg’s death has touched a flame to both of them.  This is a woman who cast a very long shadow.

And her many followers are angry and afraid. There is no better clarion call to the ballot box than that.

Evangelical voters will not lose nearly as much as progressive women if Trump gets his judge appointed. And people needing health care or Blacks wanting to vote and Dreamers who have spent their whole lives here can lose a lot if Trump gets to stack the court with another far-right conservative.

But I would caution against losing perspective. Once again, Trump shows us that he will always overplay his hand, and miss the message of the moment.

I am far from seeing the Apocalypse we are being promised, such talk makes me twitchy. I’m getting a different message.

Trump could have chosen a moderate conservative that would have muted so much of the furor and rage over Ginsburg’s death and softened the opposition of women, moderate voters, and independents.

As always, he chose the toughest and most divisive route, one that will excite the supporters he already has, but enrage, frighten and engage almost everyone else, including the many supporters who see him as an imminent threat to the environment, their personal freedom, their access to college, their right to stay in American with their families.

These groups, especially the young and black and white women, have difficulty engaging with the political process at times.  In recent years, the far-right has seen most of the electoral energy.

I think we saw that change this weekend. The energy is flowing from a different direction. Trump is a Revolution Maker.

If you followed the news last weekend, you would have seen the staggering outpouring of love and admiration for an 87-year-old jurist who hardly fits the hero’s stereotype.

For years, Ginsburg has had an enormous following among the young and working mothers, the women Trump calls “housewives.”

“I attribute my success in law school largely to Jane,” Ginsburg told the Atlantic about starting law school when her daughter was 14 months old.”I felt each part of my life gave me respite from the other.”

This and many other insights about parenting and working inspired and guided and comforted working women, millions of whom poured our admiration of her this weekend in vigils, social media posts, and public meetings.

I can’t recall ever seeing images of so many people gathering with lit candles to celebrate RBG over the last few days. For me, it was a lot more stirring than MAGA rallies in big trucks and boats.

A hero is someone to rally around. A hero is someone to get out and vote for or stand in the cold to say goodbye to.

A hero is someone to get angry about when their death is trivialized, blown off, or exploited.

This weekend, Trump did all three things. Instead of reassuring the many millions of Americans who are frightened by his death, he makes sure to frighten them further and thus disrespect their hero.

We are beginning to see that this is not strength, but just another form of madness.

In another very different world, Trump could well have been one of those people living on the streets in a tent, raging and mumbling about the demons in his head. But those people are not born with money or supportive and rich dads.

His lust for hurting people is his tragic flaw.

To me, this is an important time to step back and be careful of dystopian, hysterics and doomsayers. I will not use this time to argue with people, succumb to doomsayers, or freak out whenever I see some Trump signs.

Keep fighting, stay calm – Ruth Ginsburg’s mantra.

I am sorry that no one in either party has emerged to try and mediate or compromise or even talk openly about top this onrushing train wreck, which could harm our democracy.

So much trouble all at once, and so little of if being dealt with in a rational way.

That is a sign of our sickness. We seem to be getting tired of democracy.

There is always compromise, always a middle ground of people are brave enough and strong enough to look for one.

My dream for Joseph Biden Jr is that he stands up faces a great truth: “This isn’t working, it is only tearing our country apart. We have to sit down and begin talking to one another.”

I understand that this is not likely to happen now, but even talking about and thinking about it could be the beginning of a healing movement, rather than more divisiveness and fury.

It seems a cliche, but love and respect will serve us a lot more than arguing and hating.

Ginsburg understood that she could disagree with people without being hateful or betraying her values or goals. Some of her best enemies were her best friends.

In this country, we don’t fight for our values with guns; thus, we fight with ideas and beliefs and votes.

That was surely Ginsburg’s message.

Here’s where it is tonight. Trump appears to ram a controversial choice down the throats of most Americans who are concerned about his ethics, politics, and intensions.

No justice appointed in this way will ever have the moral authority and leadership Ginsburg or Antonin Scalia had. The Supreme Court will lose the protection of its integrity.

Trump has inspired a new generation of Americans willing to break the law or disregard it.

He will have ripped open many of the binds that have held our ideas of government and freedom together. He seeks a candidate who will vote to send all of the Dreamers homes, has made it clear she will vote to overturn Roe-vs. Wade, support the government’s persecution of immigrants, undermine womens rights,  and is opposed to legal protections for gay and transgender people.

It is one thing to argue that these positions are wrong. It is another to stuff them down people’s throats.

It turns out Ginsburg didn’t abandon women; she gave them a hero to finally and enthusiastically rally around.  She is very much a presence. On election night, Trump’s folly will be clear enough to him.

Even many of Trump’s strongest supporters worry that an extremely conservative Supreme Court Appointee – Amy Coney Barrett –  might galvanize not just Democrats but also suburban women and independent voters who have made clear they favor a more mainstream choice, and the nomination of such a person is far from certain.

That is a perfect formula for bitter civil conflict and human suffering that will go on for decades, if not longer.

How sad we don’t have a President who might have appointed a moderate experienced, even conservative jurist who believes the court should be bi-partisan and independent.

What a different country that would be overnight. But Trump lives on the extremes. His motive seems to be to tear us apart, he never tries to bring us together. He won’t speak to me.

Still, Ginsburg’s ghost might be one of the most important turns in the election. Biden is now fighting for her legacy, not just his own. And that is a new and very different story.

Having a hero to so many people changes everything. Donald Trump is unwisely betraying every belief and purpose Ginsburg had in her life.

It’s one of the great ironies of history that people most love their heroes when they die.

Trump has unleashed something he neither respects nor understands. Just put your finger up in the air and feel the wind.

His disrespect for Ginsburg and what she stood for, his failure to grasp the meaning of her,  will haunt him and cost him dearly, no matter who he tries to appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When you do what he is doing to a hero, you create yet another movement. There is no magic wand. There is no turning back.